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THE   S.  &  K.  DRAMATIC  SERIES 

FOUE    PLAYS    OF    THE   FEES    THEATEE. 

Authorized  Translation  by  Barrett  H.  Clark. 
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STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY,  PUBLISHERS, 
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TUCS'ON  HHJH  SCHOOL  LIBRARY 

PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

LEAVES   FROM  A 
CRITICS  SCRAPBOOK 

by 

WALTER  PRICHARD  EATON 

author  of 

"The  Idyl  of  Twin  Fires,"  "The  Bird  House  Man" 
"The  American  Stage  of  Today,"  etc. 


Preface  by 
BARRETT  H.  CLARK 


CINCINNATI 
STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 

1916 


COPYRIGHT,  1916,  BY 

STEWART   &    KIDD  COMPANY 
All  rights  reserved 

COPYRIGHT  IN  ENGLAND 


TO 
A.  E.  THOMAS 


PREFACE 

DRAMATIC    CRITICISM    IN    AMERICA 

The  question  has  often  been  asked  in  this  country, 
Can  there  be  absolutely  free  and  untrammelled 
criticism  of  the  drama  in  the  daily  newspaper"?  The 
recent  case  of  the  New  York  Times  and  the  Shu- 
berts  aroused  a  vast  amount  of  discussion,  some  of 
which  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  resuscitate  with  a  view 
to  arriving  at  a  more  or  less  definite  conclusion  as  to 
the  status  of  newspaper  criticism. 

A  year  ago  last  March  Alexander  Woollcott, 
dramatic  critic  of  the  Times,  reviewed  "Taking 
Chances,"  a  Shubert  production;  in  his  review,  he 
spoke  of  its  being  "not  vastly  amusing,"  of  its  plot 
being  "quite  absurd,"  the  second  act  "vulgar  and 
tedious,"  and  characterized  the  whole  as  a  "bed- 
room farce."  The  review  called  forth  a  public 
statement  from  the  Shubert  office  to  the  effect  that 
"some  of  the  critics,  lacking  in  humor,  may  try  to 
make  you  believe  that  somewhere  there  is  something 
just  a  little  bit  off  the  line  in  'Taking  Chances.' " 
The  managing  editor  of  the  Times  was  the  recipi- 


Vll 


viii  PREFACE 

ent  of  the  seats  for  the  next  Shubert  production,  but 
it  was  stipulated  that  Mr.  Woollcott  should  not  be 
permitted  inside  the  theater.  Mr.  Van  Anda,  the 
managing  editor,  a  man  who,  in  the  words  of  Samuel 
Hopkins  Adams,  "holds  to  the  old-fashioned  creed 
that  a  newspaper  should  be  edited  by  the  editors  and 
not  by  the  advertisers,"  returned  the  tickets  forth- 
with. A  short  while  after,  Mr.  Woollcott  pur- 
chased seats  at  the  Maxine  Elliott  Theater,  was  re- 
fused admittance,  and  at  once  brought  suit  against 
the  management  to  establish  his  right  to  enter  a 
theater  after  having  bought  tickets.  And  the  Times 
therewith  refused  to  take  all  Shubert  advertisements, 
and  for  nearly  a  year  to  mention  any  Shubert  play, 
actor  or  production.  The  deadlock  remained,  then, 
until  the  Shubert  office,  of  its  own  accord,  invited 
Mr.  Woollcott  to  return  to  their  theaters,  and  the 
Times^  in  turn,  resumed  its  relations  with  them  by 
accepting  advertisements  and  press  "stories." 

The  whole  case  may  at  first  appear  very  much  in 
the  same  light  as  the  cases  of  other  critics  of  Wal- 
ter Prichard  Eaton  and  the  New  York  Sun,  of 
Channing  Pollock,  of  Percy  Hammond;  but  there 
are  two  highly  significant  points  to  which  attention 
must  be  directed.  First,  contrary  to  the  usual  cus- 
tom, it  was  not  the  Shuberts  who  withdrew  their  ad- 


PREFACE  ix 

vertising  from  the  Times,  but  the  Times  that  re- 
fused to  accept  Shubert  "copy";  and,  finally,  it  was 
the  Shubert  office  that  came  to  the  Times,  after  the 
courts  had  given  the  Shuberts  the  right  to  exclude 
Mr.  Woollcott  from  their  theaters,  and  invited  Mr. 
Woollcott  to  return;  and  this  in  spite  of  Lee  Shu- 
bert's  statement  that  "During  all  this  period  that 
this  man  has  been  writing  these  things  about  our 
plays  and  of  the  plays  that  were  produced  at  our 
theaters,  the  New  York  Times  received  on  an  average 
of  from  $600  to  $700  a  week  for  advertising  the 
very  plays  which  this  man  condemned.  We  paid 
the  paper  on  an  average  of  $35,000  a  year." 

The  law,  many  times  tested,  is  clear:  the  man- 
agement of  a  theater  can  exclude  whom  it  likes;  it 
is  a  private  concern,  not  a  public  institution.  And 
yet,  the  Shuberts  invited  Mr.  Woollcott  to  return  to 
their  houses.  They  lost  no  love  for  Mr.  Woollcott : 
they  needed  the  paper. 

Now,  the  New  York  Times  happened  to  be  able 
to  afford  to  do  without  the  $35,000  a  year  from  the 
Shuberts;  had  it,  however,  like  some  New  York 
newspapers,  and  most  others,  been  unable  to  sustain 
the  loss,  it  would  have  had  to  discharge  Mr.  Wooll- 
cott. In  that  event,  the  Times  would  have  found  it 
necessary  to  heed  the  credo  of  the  Shubert  office: 


x  PREFACE 

"If  it  becomes  known  that  any  production  that  is 
made  in  one  of  our  theaters  is  sure  to  be  condemned 
by  one  of  the  leading  papers  in  this  city,  that  pro- 
ducer will  not  bring  his  production  to  our  theater 
unless  we  exclude  the  dramatic  critic  of  that  news- 
paper from  the  attraction.  I  have  been  threatened 
that  unless  I  get  fair  commented  [!]  criticism  for 
a  production  made  in  my  theaters,  that  the  produc- 
tion will  be  taken  elsewhere." 

The  simple  method  of  the  Times,  employed  with- 
out malice,  with  no  threatenings,  without  blare  of 
trumpets,  has  triumphed.  It  is  not  moral,  it  is  not 
exactly  pleasant  to  reflect  upon,  but  it  is  efficacious ; 
it  is  the  only  possible  weapon  with  which  to  combat 
the  decidedly  unethical  weapons  of  such  managers 
as  declare  that  (referring  to  the  Times  critic) 
"The  plaintiff,  from  the  commencement  of  his  em- 
ployment with  the  New  York  Times ',  has  shown  his 
bitter  feeling  and  animosity  against  the  defendants 
and  has  uniformly  written  scathing  articles  con- 
cerning the  productions  made  by  the  defendants  and 
each  of  them." 

There  are  perhaps  half  a  dozen  New  York  news- 
papers able  to  do  what  the  Times  did,  and  possibly 
a  few  more  than  that  outside  the  metropolis.  A 
great  many  of  the  weeklies  and  most  of  the  monthlies 


PREFACE  xi 

are  likewise  free  to  say  what  they  please,  but  these 
last  are  valuable  chiefly  as  leisurely  comments,  and 
not  as  critical  estimates  directly  affecting  audiences 
from  day  to  day. 

The  first  important  step  has  been  taken:  a  rich 
newspaper  can  stand  behind  its  critic,  against  the 
manager ;  but  what  of  the  paper  that  must  depend  on 
the  revenue  from  each  of  its  heavy  advertisers?  Ob- 
viously, and  unfortunately,  it  must  bow  down  to  the 
dictates  of  those  advertisers. 

The  whole  situation  as  I  have  reviewed  it  in  the 
above-cited  example,  is  considered  solely  from  the 
point  of  view  of  business;  the  dignity  and  impor- 
tance of  dramatic  criticism  as  a  part  of  the  make-up 
of  our  daily  newspaper  I  have  not  touched  upon. 
Until  criticism  can  be  at  least  fairly  free,  it  is  use- 
less to  prate  of  it  as  an  art;  "criticism,"  dictated  by 
the  theater  manager  or  the  advertising  manager, 
cannot  rise  even  to  the  height  of  good  reviewing. 
This  is  why  we  cannot  afford  to  think  of  true  dra- 
matic criticism  before  we  make  way  for  true  dra- 
matic reviewing  and  reporting.  So  long  as  it  is 
still  possible  for  a  manager  to  quote,  "It  is  clean. 
We  recommend  it,"  for  "It  is  clean.  We  have  no 
hesitation  in  recommending  it  to  the  three  little  girls 
of  'Alice  in  Wonderland'  who  lived  at  the  bottom  of 


xii  PREFACE 

the  treacle  well,"  just  so  long  shall  we  remain  where 
we  are. 

And  lest  I  be  suspected  of  the  vice  of  pessimism, 
let  me  hasten  to  state  that  there  are  in  this  country 
to-day  a  few  dramatic  critics  endowed  not  only  with 
first-rate  powers  of  perception  and  wide  knowledge 
and  experience,  but  with  true  literary  distinction. 
These  critics,  for  the  most  part,  have  been  forced  to 
write  for  magazines  and  special  issues  of  newspapers ; 
the  remaining  few  could  continue  writing  for  the 
daily  papers  because  they  have  been  able  to  establish 
for  themselves  a  real  following  of  intelligent  readers. 
It  is  to  the  critics  of  these  two  categories — and,  for- 
tunately two  or  three  belong  to  both — that  we 
must  look  for  a  future  in  the  art  and  practice  of 
dramatic  criticism.  It  is  with  the  hope  that  the 
present  collection  of  varied  papers,  documents  of 
contemporary  interest  and  specimens  of  true  criti- 
cism, will  arouse  a  more  genuine  interest  in  and  love 
for  this  difficult  and  somewhat  neglected  art,  that  I 
have  induced  Mr.  Eaton  to  allow  me  to  re-print 
these  essays. 

BARRETT  H.  CLARK. 


Almost  all  of  the  reviews  and  essays  in  this 
volume  have  previously  been  printed  in  newspapers 
or  magazines,  the  majority  of  them  being  part  of  a 
weekly  record  of  the  New  York  stage,  contributed 
during  the  past  six  years  to  the  daily  press.  They 
are  reprinted  here  without  change  or  addition ;  even 
the  occasional  prophecies  have  been  left,  if  only  to 
show  the  danger  of  donning  Cassandra's  robe. 
There  is  no  pleasure  for  the  critic  in  trying  to  doctor 
an  old  review,  and  no  profit  for  the  reader;  he  is 
almost  sure  thus  to  deprive  it  of  its  only  value — that 
of  an  immediate  and  fresh  impression.  The  writer's 
thanks  are  extended  to  the  editors  of  the  Boston 
Transcript,  the  Indianapolis  News,  the  Chicago  Her- 
ald, the  Philadelphia  Evening  Ledger,  the  New 
York  Times,  the  American  Magazine  and  the  Cen- 
tury, for  their  kind  permission  to  reprint. 

W.  P.  E. 

Stockbridge, 
Massachusetts. 


CONTENTS 

SECTION  I 

AMERICAN   PLAYS 

PAGE 

PLAYING  THE  PIPER 3 

"KINDLING" — AN  HONEST  PLAY 12 

WARFIELD  IN  THE  SPIRIT  WORLD  .     ...     .     .     17 

As  AUGUSTUS  THOMAS  THINKS     .     .     ...      .25 

BROADWAY  DISCOVERS  THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  ...     34 

CHEWING  GUM  AND  REFORM 44 

A  QUAINT  TALE  FROM  THE  ORIENT  .     .     .     .     .     .50 

BELASCO  AND  HYPNOTISM .     59 

WHAT  BISHOPS  Do  IN  THEIR  YOUTH 66 

ADVENTURES  OF  A  SOUL  AT  THE  WINTER  GARDEN  .      .     75 

HOLDING  THE  MIRROR  UP  TO  ART 82 

MR.  COHAN'S  BELIEF  IN  MIRACLES 90 

A  VICTORY  OF  UNPRETENTIOUSNESS 98 

THE  SONG  OF  SONGS,  WHICH  is  SHELDON'S  .     .      .104 
THE  POOR  WORKING  GIRL  SUFFERS  AGAIN   .     .      .110 

"THE  UNCHASTENED  WOMAN,"  A  REAL  CHARACTER 

STUDY 116 

THE  EASY  LOT  OF  THE  STAGE  HERO 123 

DON  JUAN  REDIVIVUS 128 

MRS.  FISKE  AMONG  THE  MENNONITES 134 


CONTENTS 
SECTION  II 

FOREIGN    PLAYS 

PACK 

A  LITTLE  SIDE-STREET  IN  ARCADY 141 

A  LITTLE  FLYER  IN  JOY 148 

AN  INTIMATE  THEATER  AND  AN  UNUSUAL  PLAY  .  .155 
BERNSTEIN  AND  BELASCO  AT  THEIR  BEST  .....  165 

MAUDE  ADAMS  AS  A  MURDERESS 172 

"THE  PHANTOM  RIVAL"  AND  Miss  CREWS  .  .  .179 
BARKER  BRINGS  THE  NEW  STAGE-CRAFT  ....  188 
A  FEW  MORALIZINGS  FROM  "THE  WEAVERS*'  .  .  1Q5 
A  TWENTIETH-CENTURY  TRAGEDY 202 

SECTION  III 

SHAKESPEAREAN  REVIVALS 

ON  FINDING  THE  JOKE  IN  "OTHELLO"   .     .     .     .211 

Miss  ANGLIN  AND  THE  BARD 217 

Do  You  BELIEVE  IN  GOLD  FAIRIES? 234 

"THE  TEMPEST"  WITHOUT  SCENERY 241 

SECTION  IV 

PLAYS,  PLAYERS,  AND  ACTING 

OUR  COMEDY  OF  BAD  MANNERS 249 

THE  REAL  FOES  OF  THE  SERIOUS  DRAMA  ....  265 


CONTENTS 

PACT 

GEORGE  ARLISS  —  A  STUDY  IN  ACTING 277 

WHAT  is  A  GOOD  PLAY  *? 291 

THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  AND  THE  NEW  ART  OF  THE 

THEATER 307 

WHAT  is  ENTERTAINMENT  ? 326 

A  QUIET  EVENING  IN  THE  THEATER 343 

MIDDLE- AGED  MORALIZING  FOR  YEASTY  YOUNGSTERS  351 

ON  LETTING  THE  PLAYERS  ALONE 358 

THE  TEACHING  OF  SHAKESPEARE  IN  THE  SCHOOLS  .  365 
THE  VEXED  QUESTION  OF  PERSONALITY  ....  379 
THE  LESSON  OF  THE  WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PLAYERS  .  396 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Return  of  Peter  Grimm  (set)  .     .     .       Frontispiece 


FACING 
PACK 


The  Return  of  Peter  Grimm 17 

Kismet 34 

Broadway  Jones 44 

The  Yellow  Jacket 50 

Romance 66 

The  Show-Shop 82 

The  Song  of  Songs 104 

Pomander  Walk 141 

The  Pigeon      .     >•     .:    ..:    •..-.     .     >:    :..     .     .     .     .  155 


SECTION  I 
AMERICAN  PLAYS 


PLAYING  THE  PIPER 

"The  Piper" — New  Theater,  January  30, 

One  of  the  most  common  of  tragedies  on  this 
somewhat  imperfect  planet  results  from  lack  of 
proper  adjustment  or  the  meeting  at  the  right  time 
of  the  right  elements.  A  man  who  might  have  been 
a  fine  actor  is  born  of  Puritan  parents  and  wastes 
his  life  peddling  life  insurance,  while  the  daughter 
of  his  easy-going  neighbors  enters  on  a  stage  career, 
thus  robbing  the  world  of  a  perfectly  good  stenog- 
rapher. An  East  Side  gutter  snipe,  with  a  genius 
for  finance,  is  left  to  shift  for  himself,  without  train- 
ing or  guidance,  and  ends  his  brief  career  in  Sing 
Sing,  while  many  a  business,  besides  the  railroads, 
is  crying  for  efficient  management. 

And  Josephine  Preston  Peabody  of  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  writes  a  poetic  drama  called  "The  Piper," 
which  takes  a  prize  in  England,  only  to  have  it  pro- 
duced at  the  New  Theater  with  a  woman  in  the  title 
part,  and  thus  what  might  have  been  a  valuable 
object  lesson  to  the  public  of  the  fact  that  a  poetic 

3 


drama  is  not  necessarily  a  dull  and  lifeless  thing, 
is  robbed  of  its  chief  appeal. 

We  are  not  inclined  easily  to  forgive  the  New 
Theater  for  casting  a  woman,  even  Miss  Matthison, 
as  the  Piper.  We  are  not  at  all  inclined  to  take 
any  stock  in  the  assertion  that  nobody  else  could  be 
found  for  the  part.  We  happen  to  know  that  Wal- 
ter Hampden  originally  held  the  American  rights  to 
this  drama,  and  we  shrewdly  suspect  that  his  services 
could  have  been  secured,  even  if  Mr.  Skinner,  for 
whom  the  part  was  written,  had  declined  to  play  it. 
Furthermore,  we  are  not  at  all  convinced  that 
Jacob  Wendell  of  the  New  Theater  Company  could 
not  have  played  it.  At  least  Mr.  Wendell  is  a  man. 
At  least  he  has  a  sense  of  humor,  blitheness,  dash, 
charm.  It  was  essential,  at  any  rate,  for  a  proper 
presentation  of  the  play  that  some  man  should  as- 
sume the  title  part. 

That  is  as  plain  as  A  B  C.  The  Piper  was  a  man. 
He  was  not  a  ladylike  man.  He  was  not  a  somber, 
plaintive,  sobby  man.  He  was  free,  roving,  humor- 
ous, kindly,  shrewd,  combative.  He  was  as  male 
as  Chantecler.  And  there  is  no  more  reason  why 
Miss  Matthison  should  have  been  assigned  to  the 
part  than  why  Miss  Adams  should  have  played 
Rostand's  rooster.  Indeed,  there  is  less  reason,  for 


PLAYING  THE  PIPER  5 

the  New  Theater  is  not  under  a  strictly  "commer- 
cial" management. 

It  is  rumored  that  Miss  Matthison,  like  Miss 
Adams,  is  enamoured  of  the  masculine  roles.  Such 
a  phenomenon  is  not  new  among  actresses.  The 
female  Hamlets  have  been  legion.  Miss  Matthi- 
son, it  is  reported,  aspires  to  play  the  title  part  in 
her  husband's  drama,  "The  Servant  in  the  House.'* 
But  that  is  no  reason  for  letting  her  do  it.  Prob- 
ably she  puts  altogether  too  much  stress  on  the  power 
of  her  elocution.  Her  delivery  of  exalted  speech 
is,  indeed,  beautiful  and  impressive,  though  inclined 
to  become  exceedingly  monotonous  at  times.  But 
the  delivery  of  exalted  speech  is  not  the  only,  nor 
even  the  chief,  means  to  the  creation  of  illusion  in 
a  poetic  role. 

If  that  role  be  masculine  the  first  and  foremost 
requirement  for  the  creation  of  illusion  is  masculin- 
ity. Any  theater-goer  knows  this.  A  woman  can 
play  a  boy's  part,  because  she  can  look  as  much,  or 
more,  like  a  boy  than  a  man  can.  But  a  woman  can- 
not play  a  man's  part  as  well  as  a  man,  and  on  a 
stage  where  for  more  than  two  centuries  the  sexes 
have  assumed  each  its  own  characters  there  is  piti- 
fully little  sense  in  her  trying.  She  may  succeed  in 
creating  something  strange  and  wonderful,  but  for 


6  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

the  normal  audience  she  will  never  create  the  char- 
acter intended  by  the  dramatist. 

And  another  requirement  of  any  role,  more  im- 
portant for  illusion  than  a  musical  elocution,  is  the 
personal  attribute  of  humor,  if  that  role  be  humor- 
ous, of  pathos  if  it  be  pathetic,  and  so  on.  Now, 
the  character  of  the  Piper  in  Miss  Peabody's  play 
is  full  of  humor.  It  is  not  farcical  humor,  to  be 
sure.  It  is  the  glimmering,  half  wild  humor  of  a 
rover  down  the  windy  world,  of  a  lover  of  freedom 
and  the  open  air,  of  a  hater  of  shams  and  meanness. 
Did  you  ever  know  a  hater  of  shams  who  did  not 
grin  in  the  midst  of  his  most  passionate  denunci- 
ations, or  a  lover  of  children  who  had  a  sob  in  his 
voice?  Can  you  think  of  the  Pied  Piper  of  Hame- 
lin  Town  with  a  sob  in  his  voice?  A  ring  of 
defiance,  of  righteous  rage,  yes.  But  a  sob — never ! 

Yet  Miss  Matthison,  to  whom  was  entrusted  the 
part  of  the  Piper,  has  no  humor  in  her  playing.  She 
never  has  had.  In  all  her  impersonations  she  has 
never  once  convincingly  played  a  humorous  role. 
She  may  smile  and  smile,  but  you  are  unpersuaded. 
Moreover,  her  monotonous  manner  of  delivery  has 
of  late  been  growing  into  something  perilously  akin 
to  lachrimosity.  Constantly  through  "The  Piper" 
she  has  as  distinct  a  sob  in  her  voice  as  Caruso  in 


PLAYING  THE  PIPER  7 

the  famed  finale  to  Act  I  of  "Pagliacci."  This  is 
not  the  Pied  Piper.  This  is  neither  the  Piper  of 
tradition,  to  whom,  of  course,  Miss  Peabody  must 
to  a  certain  extent  bow,  so  fixed  is  he  in  our  imag- 
inations, nor  is  it  the  particular  Piper  of  Miss  Pea- 
body's  play.  This  is  a  plaintive  woman  reading 
the  lines  which  belong  to  a  full-blooded,  defiant,  yet 
deeply  humorous  man. 

When,  for  instance,  Miss  Matthison,  as  the  Piper, 
plays  to  the  children  in  the  cave  whence  "he"  has 
lured  them,  "he"  dances  among  them,  piping  the 
while,  and  they  are  supposed  to  clap  their  hands  en- 
raptured. Now,  Miss  Matthison  dances  amid  the 
little  folks  most  gracefully.  Every  move  she  makes 
has  feminine  charm,  poetic  rhythm.  And  every 
move  she  makes  destroys  by  so  much  more  the  illu- 
sion. The  Pied  Piper  didn't  dance  according  to 
the  approved  methods  of  Delsarte  or  Miss  Duncan. 
The  chances  are  he  didn't  dance  at  all.  If  he  did 
he  probably  hopped  grotesquely,  giving  as  close  an 
imitation  as  he  could  of  the  inimitable  steps  of  Fred 
Stone. 

You  never  in  your  life  saw  a  child  enraptured  by 
Isadora  Duncan,  but  there  never  was  a  child  yet  who 
wouldn't  follow  Fred  Stone  to  the  ends  of  the  world. 

In  other  words,   Miss  Matthison  here  is  doing 


8  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

exactly  what  has  been  done  so  often  before  in  the 
poetic  drama,  making  it  seem  absurd  to  the  average 
audience.  She  is  taking  the  life,  the  naturalness 
out  of  it.  She  is  making  it  artificial,  "artistic"  and 
hence  unillusive.  She  can  do  more  harm  by  five 
minutes  of  such  pretty  posing  than  she  can  do  good 
by  a  whole  evening's  musical  recitation  of  the  verse. 

Now,  all  this  comment  wouldn't  be  worth  the 
time  it  takes  to  read  it,  let  alone  the  time  it 
takes  to  write  it,  were  "The  Piper"  one  of 
those  ordinary  "poetic  dramas"  which  have  been 
turned  out  with  the  regularity  of  clockwork  for 
many  a  year,  only  to  fail  on  the  stage,  if  they  ever 
reached  the  stage,  not  because  they  were  poetic,  but 
because  they  were  not  human,  vital,  interesting  and 
uncontaminated  with  pose  and  the  straining  after 
"literary"  speech. 

But  "The  Piper"  is  not  such  a  play.  It  is  a 
human  and  an  interesting  narrative,  badly  con- 
structed, to  be  sure,  in  its  central  portions,  so  that 
the  second  and  third  acts  "sag,"  but  full  of  life, 
color,  simple  emotions,  and  the  talk  of  human 
beings. 

Because  the  dramatic  interest  is  not  sustained  in 
the  central  portions,  "The  Piper"  can  never  rank 
as  a  completely  successful  play.  The  author  has 


PLAYING  THE  PIPER  9 

made  the  grave  error  of  building  up  her  leading 
"clash  of  wills"  not  between  two  persons  seen  at  the 
struggle,  but  between  the  Piper  and  the  figure  of 
Christ  on  a  roadside  cross;  that  is,  in  the  brain  and 
heart  of  one  character,  revealed  through  soliloquy. 
Save  with  a  poet  of  great  genius  and  an  actor  of 
equal  force  such  a  method  is  hopeless.  But  none 
the  less  her  play  does  have  enough  sheer  dramatic 
value  and  enough  popular  interest  to  win  a  wide 
public,  to  charm  them  by  the  music  of  its  verse  and 
the  human  quality  of  its  story. 

It  is  important,  then,  that  such  a  play  reach  a 
public  only  too  ready  to  scorn  the  poetic  drama, 
under  the  best  possible  conditions — that  is,  with  its 
human  appeal  telling  at  the  full  value,  its  direct, 
simple  emotional  quality  made  the  most  of. 

To  put  a  woman  in  the  title  part  is  to  strike  at 
the  roots  of  its  human  appeal,  to  rob  it  of  natural- 
ness, of  illusion;  to  fill  it  with  pose  and  affectation. 
We  prefer  as  a  people  to-day  the  realistic  drama 
of  contemporary  life.  Would  we  endure  for  a  mo- 
ment seeing  a  woman  play  the  leading  male  role 
in  "The  Boss,"  or  "The  Man  of  the  Hour,"  or 
"Get-Rich-Quick  Wallingford"  ?  Of  course  we 
would  not,  and  of  course  we  should  not.  But  by 
some  crazy  process  of  reasoning  some  of  us  seem  to 


10  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

suppose  that  the  poetic  drama  can  be  treated  in  quite 
a  different  manner,  that  it  may  be  "artistic"  for  a 
woman  to  play  male  roles  in  such  drama,  though 
everybody  is  perfectly  well  aware  that  it  is  totally 
inartistic  and  futile  for  her  to  play  male  roles  in  the 
drama  of  the  hour. 

After  all,  this  attitude  not  only  is  an  insult  to  the 
poetic  drama,  since  it  presupposes  a  kind  of  un- 
reality and  lack  of  sanity  in  that  form,  but  it  is  the 
greatest  possible  foe  to  the  popular  acceptance  of 
the  poetic  drama.  That  drama,  to  succeed  with  the 
mass  of  theater-goers,  must  seem  real,  human,  inter- 
esting, close  to  the  life  of  the  people.  It  never  suc- 
ceeded in  any  nation,  at  any  time,  when  it  was  not 
real  and  vital  to  the  people.  It  never  succeeded 
when  it  was  treated  as  an  exotic,  as  something  remote 
and  "artistic,"  and  it  never  will. 

There  is  no  reason  why  it  should. 

If  it  is  something  exotic,  remote,  then  it  isn't 
worth  doing  at  all.  If  it  is  to  be  treated  any  dif- 
ferently from  the  drama  which  is  real  and  vital  to 
us,  there  is  no  reason  on  earth  why  we  should  go 
to  see  it.  The  poetic  drama  is  of  value  only  in  so 
far  as  it  can  persuade  us  that  it  is  just  as  much  drama 
as  the  prose  form,  with  the  added  beauty  of  height- 
ened speech  and  a  more  exalted  spiritual  outlook. 


PLAYING  THE  PIPER  11 

It  is  the  great  superiority  of  "The  Piper1'  over 
most  of  the  recent  attempts  at  poetic  drama  that  it 
can  persuade  us  of  this.  Even  at  the  New  Theater, 
in  a  production  admirable  in  nearly  all  respects  save 
the  sex  of  the  leading  player,  it  in  no  small  degree 
persuades  us.  But  the  persuasion  might  have  been 
complete  and  the  play  a  popular  success  had  the 
mistake  not  been  made  of  casting  a  woman  in  the 
title  role.  Hence  that  error  is  of  considerable  im- 
portance, for  it  vitally  concerns  the  spread  of  poetry 
on  our  stage. 


"KINDLING"— AN  HONEST  PLAY 

"Kindling" — Daly's  Theater,  December  5,  ign 

Two  or  three  weeks  ago,  when  four  women  stars 
all  came  to  town  at  once,  it  was  remarked  that  the 
two  more  popular  and  expert  players,  Miss  Barry- 
more  and  Nazimova,  were  exploited  in  presumably 
the  best  foreign  plays  to  be  had.  The  other  women, 
Miss  Illington  and  Miss  Ferguson,  had  to  fall  back 
on  untried,  native  material. 

Behold,  of  the  four  plays,  "Kindling,"  in  which 
Miss  Illington  is  appearing  at  Daly's,  is  by  far  the 
most  effective  for  American  audiences,  and  next  to 
it  in  interest  ranks  "The  First  Lady  of  the  Land," 
in  which  Miss  Ferguson  is  appearing.  We  hardly 
need  better  proof  of  the  waning  of  adaptations  on 
our  stage,  or  of  the  English  play  which  has  nothing 
to  recommend  it  above  our  own  product  except  a 
London  run. 

"Kindling"  is  the  work  of  a  California  newspaper 
writer,  Charles  Kenyon.  It  is  said  that  Mr.  Ken- 
yon  has  previously  written  several  vaudeville 
sketches,  but  that  this  is  his  first  long  play.  It  has 

12 


"KINDLING"— AN  HONEST  PLAY     13 

much  of  the  crudity  and  alternate  stiffness  and 
naturalness  of  the  first  play  of  a  promising  writer. 
But,  like  Joseph  Patterson's  "The  Fourth  Estate," 
it  has  in  combination  with  the  crudity,  or  rather  be- 
hind the  crudity,  a  certain  quality  of  sincerity  and 
directness  that  make  it  worth  attention,  and  that  lift 
it  at  times  above  all  considerations  of  technique. 

"Kindling"  is  the  story  of  Maggie  Schultz,  wife 
of  a  stevedore,  and  the  scene  is  her  miserable  home 
in  a  tenement.  Maggie's  husband  is  one  of  those 
German  laborers  who  reads  and  goes  to  meetings 
and  has  social  theories,  and  is  consequently  called 
"dangerous"  by  the  master  class,  which  doesn't  want 
any  theories  except  its  own.  One  of  his  theories — 
which,  if  it  is  often  held  in  the  slums,  is  certainly 
seldom  practiced — is  that  people  like  him  and  Mag- 
gie should  not  bring  children  into  the  world,  to  grow 
up  to  almost  inevitable  illhealth  in  the  gutters — 
human  kindling.  This  theory  he  dins  into  Maggie's 
ears,  and  he  is  aided  by  certain  settlement  workers 
who  trail  their  silk  gowns  a  little  too  ostentatiously 
through  this  play. 

But  Maggie  represents  the  dumb,  irrepressible 
maternal  instinct  of  the  female  of  the  species.  She 
accepts  the  doctrine,  but  her  answer  is  that  if  it  is 
wrong  to  bring  children  into  a  slum  world,  then  the 


14  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

way  out  is  to  escape  from  the  slum  world- — not  to 
have  no  children  at  all. 

She  and  Heinie  want  to  get  out  to  Wyoming. 
Heinie  hasn't  the  money.  There  is  a  strike  on,  and 
he  cannot  earn  money.  But,  as  Mr.  Kipling  has  in- 
formed us,  the  female  of  the  species  is  more  deadly 
than  the  male.  There  is  no  passive  resistance  in 
Maggie's  maternal  code.  Besides,  it  is  a  secret  be- 
tween her  and  the  audience  that  the  baby  is  already 
more  than  theoretical.  Maggie  steals  to  get  money, 
so  that  he  may  be  born  in  the  pure  air  of  Wyoming. 

A  good  deal  of  the  dramatic  machinery  by  which 
this  theft  is  accomplished,  and  by  which  it  finally 
becomes  known  to  the  husband,  is  plausible  enough. 
It  is  simply  not  fitted  together  into  a  smooth-work- 
ing engine.  Again,  after  Maggie  confesses  to  her 
husband  that  a  baby  is  really  expected,  and  he 
realizes  the  true  reason  for  her  theft  and  sturdily 
stands  by  her,  the  final  act  is  not  quite  firmly  knit 
to  sustain  the  suspense  as  to  Maggie's  fate,  though, 
of  course,  in  the  end  the  rich  people  whom  she  has 
robbed  drop  their  charge  against  her  and  presumably 
realize  a  little  better  the  dread  problems  of  poverty. 
In  spite  of  these  defects,  however,  the  second  and 
last  acts  of  the  play  are  poignant  and  sincere,  and 
it  is  a  very  hard-hearted  theater-goer  indeed  who 


"KINDLING"— AN  HONEST  PLAY     15 

can  hear  Maggie  say,  as  the  final  curtain  leaves  her 
in  her  husband's  arms,  "Maybe  there  are  roses  in 
Wyoming,"  without  a  choke  in  the  throat. 

It  happens  that  Miss  Illington  was  last  seen  in 
New  York  in  "The  Thief."  In  that  drama  she 
played  the  part  of  a  woman  who  stole,  not  from 
sheer  dishonesty,  but  to  dress  well  enough  to  keep 
the  "love"  of  her  husband,  as  love  is  understood  in 
the  French  drama.  Technically  the  Bernstein  play 
is  as  far  superior  to  Mr.  Kenyon's  piece  as  the  great 
traditions  of  French  playwriting  are  older  than  ours. 
But  yet  the  crude  American  drama  has  something 
for  us  the  other  has  not.  It  has  a  spiritual  quality, 
it  has  honest  and  unaffected  sympathy  for  the  poor, 
it  has  a  fair  and  square  recognition  that  social  rela- 
tions go  out  beyond  the  boudoir  into  the  slums  and 
tenements.  It  thrills  us  less  than  "The  Thief,"  it 
pleases  less  by  well  ordered  action  and  suspense,  the 
delight  of  craftsmanship;  but  what  it  loses  thus  it 
more  than  makes  up  in  sympathy.  It  came  unher- 
alded and  undescribed  into  New  York.  It  won  its 
way  on  its  merits.  These  are  the  merits  of  honest 
purpose,  warm  sympathy  and  a  deep,  if  crude,  emo- 
tionalism. 

Bernstein  is  interested  in  drama,  Mr.  Kenyon  in 
human  beings. 


16  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Miss  Illington,  as  Maggie,  has  never  played  bet- 
ter. She  does  not,  to  be  sure,  attempt  to  reproduce 
a  German  dialect;  she  does  not  carry  her  character 
acting  that  far.  But  neither  does  she  "talk  tough." 
She  strives  for,  and  usually  she  achieves,  a  kind  of 
rough,  honest  speech  which  marks  well  enough  the 
social  and  intellectual  level  of  her  supposed  Maggie, 
and  then  it  appears  to  be  her  whole  object  to  make 
Maggie  a  type  of  the  maternal  instinct  struggling 
with  whatever  primitive  weapons  it  may  against  the 
grim  inhibitions  and  injustices  of  our  modern  in- 
dustrialism. She  never  "shows  off"  in  her  acting 
in  this  play.  She  has  no  fine  clothes  to  wear,  and 
she  acts  the  better  without  them.  She  slumps  down 
into  a  rather  dumpy,  corsetless  figure,  and  carries 
conviction  to  the  eye  as  well  as  the  ear.  Her  con- 
fession to  her  husband  is  a  simple,  sincere,  touching 
piece  of  work.  If  the  preceding  scene  of  cross-ques- 
tioning is  not  so  effective,  that  is  rather  the  drama- 
tist's fault.  Her  final  moments  in  the  play  are  truly 
touching  and  beautiful.  The  part  is  a  good  one, 
an  honest  one,  and  one  which  appeals  to  the  ele- 
mental sympathies  of  an  audience.  She  has  been 
wise  enough  to  realize  it,  and  has  tried  for  no  fire- 
works. 


THE  RETURN  OF  PETER  GRIMM 
Act  I 


WARFIELD  IN  THE  SPIRIT  WORLD 

"The  Return  of  Peter  Grimm" — Belasco  Theater, 
October  17,  1911 

Occasionally  David  Warfield  lays  aside  "The 
Music  Master"  long  enough  to  produce  a  new  play. 
He  has  done  so  to  celebrate  the  advent  of  1911, 
producing  in  Boston  a  new  drama  signed  by  David 
Belasco,  called  "The  Return  of  Peter  Grimm." 
The  present  writer  dared  the  east  wind  to  see  this 
new  play.  His  trip  to  Boston  was  rewarded  by  an 
evening  of  rare  and  curious  theatrical  interest,  even 
excitement.  But  it  was  not  rewarded  by  any  new 
revelations  in  David  Warfield' s  art,  nor,  indeed,  by 
any  very  vivid  character  delineation  even  along  the 
familiar  lines  of  Warfield's  past  achievements. 
"The  Return  of  Peter  Grimm"  is  interesting  rather 
as  a  play,  almost  as  a  problem  in  stage  management, 
than  as  a  character  picture  painted  by  the  actor. 
It  is  tremendously  worth  doing.  But  it  is  not  worth 
doing  for  two  seasons  to  the  exclusion  of  everything 
else.  Mr.  Warfield  should  have  it  in  a  repertory. 

17 


i8  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Mr.  Warfield  is  one  of  those  rare  players  who  is 
greater,  or  more  interesting,  than  most  plays.  It 
is  such  men  who  owe  it  to  the  world  to  play  many 
parts,  to  search  out  as  variously  as  they  can  all  cor- 
ners of  character  and  experience. 

In  his  new  drama,  Mr.  Belasco  has  deserted  the 
realms  of  realism  and  of  conventional  emotion. 
Seeking  always  to  be  abreast  of  the  hour,  he  has 
based  a  play  on  the  alleged  compact  between  the 
late  William  James  and  another  scientist,  that 
whichever  died  first  should  try  his  best  to  communi- 
cate with  the  living  one  if  individuality  persisted 
after  death. 

Peter  Grimm,  played  by  Mr.  Warfield,  is  a  very 
well-to-do  and  very  amiable  and  lovable  old  tulip 
and  orchid  grower  in  a  Hudson  River  town,  settled 
by  his  Dutch  ancestors.  He  evidently  has  a  heart 
trouble.  His  old  friend,  Dr.  Andrew  MacPherson, 
enters  into  a  compact  with  him  similar  to  that  which 
Professor  James  is  said  to  have  made.  At  the  end 
of  the  first  act  Peter  Grimm  dies  after  he  has,  in  his 
stubborn  Dutch  way,  made  his  orphan  ward,  Kath- 
rien,  promise  to  marry  his  nephew,  Frederik,  in  order 
to  preserve  the  Grimm  name  and  the  Grimm  tulip 
industry. 

Now,  Kathrien  did  not  love  Frederik,  who  was  a 


WARFIELD  IN  THE  SPIRIT  WORLD     19 

no-good  fellow  anyway,  though  her  loving  old 
guardian,  in  his  pig-headedness,  could  not  realize 
either  fact.  You  saw  tragedy  impending  for  her. 
But  so  does  Peter,  apparently,  as  soon  as  he  is  dead. 
For  in  the  second  act  he  comes  back,  and  the  entire 
act  is  devoted  to  his  efforts  to  communicate  with  the 
living  in  order  to  persuade  the  girl  to  break  her 
promise  and  to  follow  rather  the  real  dictates  of  her 
heart. 

This  is  sheer  supernaturalism.  And  in  the  man- 
ner in  which  it  is  put  on  the  stage  lies  the  chief 
interest  and  value  of  the  play.  It  is  a  fascinating 
problem,  and  before  the  success  of  its  solution  the 
most  skeptical  and  unimaginative  must  bow. 

The  supernatural  is  handled  with  the  least  pos- 
sible use  of  conventional  agencies.  Peter  Grimm's 
first  entrance,  to  be  sure,  is  effected  on  a  dark  stage, 
made  plausible  by  a  thunder  shower  outside  and 
the  coming  of  night.  The  living  people  in  the  room 
gradually  have  a  kind  of  uneasiness;  finally  they 
light  a  lamp.  Peter  Grimm  stands  there  in  their 
midst,  just  as  in  life. 

But  they  do  not  see  him. 

He  talks  to  them  and  they  do  not  hear  him.  He 
cries  to  them,  and  they  do  not  heed.  He  cannot 
"get  across,"  as  he  puts  it.  Only  occasionally  he 


20  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

seems  to  affect  their  thoughts,  to  stir  them  to  a  vague 
unrest,  and  once  his  nephew  fancies  that  he  sees  him, 
brushing  the  thought  from  his  brain  with  a  laugh. 

Poor  Peter  beholds  the  preparations  for  the  mar- 
riage going  on  in  spite  of  him.  He  cannot,  dead, 
undo  the  work  he  did  while  quick.  He  cannot  in- 
duce Kathrien  to  break  her  bitter  promise. 

But  there  is  in  the  house  a  little  boy,  Willem,  the 
grandson  of  Peter's  old  housekeeper.  Nobody 
knows  who  Willem's  father  was.  His  mother 
would  never  tell,  and  Willem  was  too  young  when 
his  mother's  betrayer  left  her  to  remember.  Willem 
now  has  a  fever.  He  is  a  sensitive  child  at  all  times. 
Now,  in  his  fevered  condition,  he  is  doubly  so.  It 
is  through  him  that  Peter  finally  communicates. 

Gradually,  in  a  tense  hush  in  the  auditorium, 
Peter's  words  are  felt  to  reach  the  boy's  ear;  grad- 
ually he  speaks  in  reply.  The  doctor  comes  in,  and 
Kathrien.  The  child  tells  them  Peter  has  been  in 
the  room.  The  doctor  struggles  with  him  for  proof. 
Peter  urges  him  to  tell  who  his  father  was,  calling 
to  his  memory.  The  child  answers  the  voice,  seem- 
ing to  the  rest  on  the  stage  to  address  the  empty  air. 
Finally  he  tells  those  about  him  that  his  father  was 
Frederik. 

Now  whether  this  was  due  to  Peter  or  to  a  sudden 


WARFIELD  IN  THE  SPIRIT  WORLD     21 

rising  to  the  "threshold"  of  his  consciousness  (as 
Professor  James  would  say)  of  a  subconscious  mem- 
ory, is  a  moot  point,  very  cleverly  left  by  Mr.  Bel- 
asco  as  a  loophole  of  escape  from  any  charges  that 
he  accepts  spirit  phenomena  as  proved.  At  any  rate, 
the  child's  confession  frees  Kathrien  from  her  hate- 
ful marriage,  and  Peter  has  accomplished  his  pur- 
pose. 

The  act  is  more  than  an  hour  long.  It  deals  al- 
most entirely  with  a  supernatural  situation,  which 
might  very  well  make  the  skeptic  smile.  Yet  it  is 
staged  with  such  nice  regard  to  what  might  be  called 
a  hypothetical  possibility,  and  it  is  so  replete  with 
theatrical  suspense  and  the  emotional  poignancy  of 
a  suffering  soul — the  soul  of  Peter  Grimm  suffering 
because  he  cannot  communicate  with  his  loved  ones 
in  the  land  of  the  living — that  it  holds  the  interest 
almost  unflaggingly,  after  the  first  few  moments  of 
the  tiresome  Belasco  comic  relief  are  over,  and  for 
many  will  undoubtedly  be  fraught  with  a  strange, 
uncanny  thrill. 

With  this  act,  the  play,  as  it  at  present  stands, 
really  ends.  The  last  act  is  as  mawkish  as  the  death 
of  Paul  Dombey.  Willem  dies,  and  Peter  Grimm 
takes  him.  It  is  better  that  he  should  be  dead,  bet- 
ter for  all,  poor  little  chap,  says  Peter.  And  Wil- 


22  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

lem  appears  to  want  to  die.  Inasmuch  as  in  act  one 
he  had  been  wild  with  joy  at  the  prospect  of  a  cir- 
cus, and  in  act  two  had  been  eating  cakes  to  his 
heart's  content,  there  seemed  no  real  reason  either 
why  his  spirit  should  desire  death  or  his  body  yield 
to  it.  But  Peter  makes  his  final  exit  with  Willem 
on  his  shoulder — a  modern  Reaper  with  a  frock  coat 
and  high  hat — while  the  doctor  contemplates  a  wax 
replica  of  the  boy  stretched  out  on  the  couch,  after 
the  style  of  the  Eden  Musee. 

This  act  is  pretty  poor  stuff.  We  learn  nothing 
more  about  Peter  Grimm.  He  evinces  no  sorrow 
that,  after  all,  while  he  has  accomplished  his  purpose 
in  breaking  off  the  marriage,  he  has  not  really  talked 
to  his  loved  ones,  save  through  Willem.  He  tells 
us  nothing  of  the  compensating  joys  of  the  life  here- 
after. Perhaps,  indeed,  we  should  not  expect  that ; 
we  should  hardly  demand  even  of  David  Belasco  a 
solution  of  the  mystery  of  the  ages.  But  at  least, 
since  we  have  been  shown  Peter's  spirit  returned  to 
the  scene  of  his  life,  it  would  be  permissible  and  in- 
teresting to  let  us  a  little  more  into  his  sentiments 
and  emotions,  to  make  him  and  not  little  Willem  the 
leading  figure  at  the  close.  As  the  play  stands  now, 
it  concludes  for  the  audience  at  the  end  of  act  two. 

The  same  setting  remains  for  all  three  acts,  and 


WARFIELD  IN  THE  SPIRIT  WORLD     23 

it  is  a  thing  of  great  beauty — the  interior  of  an  old 
cottage,  wainscoted  with  oak  and  with  oak  beams  in 
the  ceiling,  hung  with  ancient  Dutch  portraits,  and 
dominated  by  an  old  Dutch  chimney  piece  full  of 
niches  and  covered  with  crockery,  pipes  and  a  hun- 
dred suitable  relics.  In  one  corner  stands  a  what- 
not bearing  bowls  of  sprouting  bulbs.  By  the  fire- 
place are  bundles  of  shoots  wrapped  up  in  sacking 
— precious  plants  which  have  been  the  source  of  the 
Grimm  fortune,  and  really  ought  to  be  out  in  the 
moist  greenhouse  or  store  room!  There  is  an  old- 
fashioned  square  piano.  The  dining-room,  off  stage, 
is  seen  in  its  completeness  when  the  door  is  opened, 
suggesting  not  the  flies  of  a  theater,  but  a  real  house 
extending  off  indefinitely.  The  landscape  without 
has  mellow  charm.  The  house  within  has  age  and 
home-likeness  and  Dutch  flavor.  And,  more  im- 
portant than  all,  in  spite  of  its  brightness  and  cheer, 
it  is  in  some  subtle  way  colored  and  shadow-filled 
to  comport  with  the  mood  of  supernatural  visitation. 
It  is  a  lovely  setting  for  the  lovely  personality  of 
David  Warfield,  and  it  exactly  fits  the  mood  of  the 
drama. 

But  as  this  setting  stands  unchanged,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  after  a  certain  point  is  reached  in  the 
play,  the  character  of  Peter  Grimm,  which  the  actor 


24  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

impersonates,  also  becomes  stationary,  even  a  little 
monotonous.  After  its  purpose  is  accomplished  of 
showing  the  perhaps  possible  interference  in  the 
affairs  of  the  living  by  one  dead,  there  is  no  longer 
any  interest  in  the  emotional  existence  of  the  spirit 
visitor.  The  play  degenerates  into  mawkishness, 
and  loses  its  potential  poetry.  We  are  sure  William 
James  would  have  had  something  more  to  say. 


AS  AUGUSTUS  THOMAS  THINKS 

"As  a  Man  Thinks"— jptk  Street  Theater, 
March  7j,  1911 

A  new  play  by  Augustus  Thomas  is  likely  to  be 
at  once  interesting  and  important.  Mr.  Thomas, 
above  our  other  native  writers,  combines  technical 
skill  with  a  genuine  wit,  a  sense  of  style,  and  in 
recent  years,  at  any  rate,  an  intellectual  purpose — 
that  is  to  say,  he  keeps  his  story  related  to  some 
definite  idea  and  makes  it  seem  significantly  con- 
nected with  what  is  taking  place  in  the  outer  world 
of  actual  events. 

The  first  play  put  forward  by  Mr.  Thomas  in  this, 
his  "later  manner" — if  we  may  employ  the  sen- 
tentious term — was  "The  Witching  Hour,"  and 
that  drama  was  remarkable  for  its  skillful  combina- 
tion of  an  exciting  theatrical  story  with  a  serious 
depiction  of  telepathic  phenomena.  It  enjoyed  a 
great  success,  with  John  Mason  as  the  star.  Mr. 
Thomas  followed  "The  Witching  Hour"  with  "The 
Harvest  Moon,"  a  less  successful  play,  this  time 

25 


26  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

dealing  with  the  dynamic  power,  for  good  or  evil, 
of  suggestion.  Now  at  the  Thirty-ninth  Street  The- 
ater in  New  York  he  is  exhibiting  a  third  drama, 
called  "As  a  Man  Thinks,"  dealing  still  further  with 
this  dynamic  power  of  suggestion,  with  mental 
health  and  sickness  induced  by  our  own  habits  of 
thought.  Again  John  Mason  is  the  star.  And 
again  the  audiences  are  large. 

Personally,  we  do  not  like  this  play  so  well  as 
"The  Witching  Hour,"  though  others  like  it  better. 
It  illustrates  the  extreme  difficulties  of  the  peculiar 
form  of  drama  which  endeavors  to  set  forth  an  in- 
tellectual thesis  in  terms  of  a  human  and  probable 
story.  Successfully  handled,  this  is  an  immensely 
stimulating  form  of  drama,  but  it  requires  a  man  of 
great  dramatic  skill,  and  unquestioned  intellectual 
authority  as  well,  to  handle  it.  Mr.  Thomas  dis- 
closed no  uncomfortable  lack  of  either  quality  in 
"The  Witching  Hour."  In  the  new  play  we  feel 
a  certain  lack  of  the  intellectual  clarity  needed. 
The  story  is  there,  but  the  intellectual  significance 
of  the  story  is  not  quite  clear.  The  total  effect  is 
cloudy.  Mr.  Thomas  appears  to  be  groping.  That 
is  why  we  are  a  trifle  surprised  at  the  great  popular- 
ity of  "As  a  Man  Thinks." 

To  tell  the  story  of  this  drama  would  be  at  once 


AS  AUGUSTUS  THOMAS  THINKS     27 

difficult  and  futile.  Unlike  the  story  of  "The  Har- 
vest Moon,"  it  is  not  simple,  but  extremely  intricate, 
and  the  intricate  stage  play  is  only  too  often  made 
to  seem  dull  and  confusing  in  narrative.  Suffice  it 
to  say  that  the  leading  character  is  an  elderly  Jew, 
a  noted  New  York  doctor,  and  the  plot  concerns  his 
relation  with  a  Christian  family,  and  the  relations  of 
other  Jews  and  Christians  with  his  own  family, 
particularly  his  daughter.  Here  is  one  point  where 
the  intellectual  clarity  of  the  play  is  clouded.  You 
are  never  sure  how  far  Mr.  Thomas  means  to  illus- 
trate the  interrelations  of  Jews  and  Gentiles,  or  how 
far  his  emphasis  is  rather  on  the  purely  scientific 
and  entirely  unracial  teachings  of  the  doctor  regard- 
ing mental  health  and  right  living  and  thinking. 
Indeed,  the  trouble  with  the  play  is  perhaps  that  it 
possesses  too  great  a  wealth  of  material.  Mr. 
Thomas  had  too  many  interests  pressing  upon  him, 
each  clamoring  for  exposition.  In  one  act  you  feel 
that  he  is  trying  to  tell  some  wholesome  truths  about 
Jewish  character.  In  another  you  decide  that  he 
is  trying  to  teach  that  there  is  one  moral  code  for 
men,  another  for  women,  just  as  the  world  has  long 
assumed,  except,  however,  that  Mr.  Thomas  does 
not  teach  this  to  extenuate  the  men,  but  still  further 
to  elevate  the  women,  and  through  them  the  family. 


28  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Then,  finally,  when  his  doctor  preaches  the  poisonous 
character  of  hate  to  the  sick  Christian  lying  on  his 
bed  and  refusing  to  forgive  either  his  apparently  err- 
ing wife  or  the  Jew  with  whom  she  has  been  indis- 
creet, you  are  convinced  that  Mr.  Thomas  after  all 
is  most  concerned  to  teach  once  more  his  doctrine  of 
the  healing  or  destructive  power  of  thought. 

Confusion  is  the  inevitable  result.  But,  let  us 
hasten  to  say,  it  is  the  confusion  of  wealth ;  and  for 
that,  at  least,  we  may  be  thankful. 

Another  thing  for  which  we  may  be  thankful  is 
the  style  with  which  the  exposition  is  handled,  and 
with  which  the  play  is  mounted  and  acted.  It  is 
seldom  that  an  American  drama  reaches  our  stage  so 
genuinely  distinguished  by  fine  speech,  by  good  man- 
ners and  by  a  natural,  easy,  seemingly  artless  exposi- 
tion of  the  characters  and  motives  of  the  drama,  not 
in  terms  of  those  terrible  "Do  you  remember  last 
year  in  Paris"  speeches,  but  in  terms  of  actual 
drama,  which  serves  to  explain  all  that  has  hap- 
pened in  the  past  without  seeming  at  the  moment  to 
be  explaining  anything.  Here  is  exposition,  in 
other  words,  which  at  once  explains  the  past  and 
leads  toward  the  future,  toward  the  second  act. 
This  is  style  in  playbuilding. 

The  opening  act  of  "As  a  Man  Thinks"  is  bound 


AS  AUGUSTUS  THOMAS  THINKS     29 

to  rank  high  in  American  drama.  Every  budding 
playwright  should  study  it  carefully.  It  is  Con- 
tinental in  its  finished  ease  and  polish.  When  the 
first  curtain  sinks,  for  example,  you  have  seen  the 
drawing  room  of  Dr.  Seeling,  the  Jewish  physician, 
at  afternoon  teatime.  You  have  made  the  doctor's 
acquaintance,  and  accepted  him  as  the  finest  type 
alike  of  his  own  race  and  the  skilled  and  broad- 
minded  doctor  of  the  present  day.  You  have  fallen 
quite  in  love  with  his  young  daughter,  and  with  the 
young  Christian  artist  who  you  learn  is  in  love  with 
her.  You  have  seen  the  Jewish  art  critic  to  whom 
she  is  engaged,  felt  the  unpleasant  quality  which 
resides  in  him  (and  which  his  fiancee  feels,  too) — 
that  racial  quality  of  clever,  obnoxious  intrigue  and 
callousness  to  a  snub.  You  have  seen  the  Christian 
wife  of  a  rich  magazine  proprietor,  and  learned  how 
she  has  been  forced  to  forgive  the  amatory  exploits 
of  her  husband.  You  have  even  seen  the  husband, 
a  type  of  our  American  "self-made  man  who  wor- 
ships his  creator,"  and  are  prepared  to  sympathize 
with  this  wife  in  her  subsequent  foolish  revolt. 
You  have  heard  all  these  people  talking  at  an  after- 
noon tea,  on  the  familiar  terms  of  intimate  acquain- 
tance, and  thus  you  have  learned  who  and  what 
they  are,  but  without  seeming  to  have  learned. 


30  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Rather  have  you  seemed  to  remove  one  wall  of  the 
room  and  watched  them  off  guard.  The  acting  is 
good,  the  staging  (by  Mr.  Thomas  himself)  excel- 
lent; hence  the  air  of  breeding,  of  easy  manners,  of 
correct  speech  and  polite  consideration  and  intelli- 
gent wit,  is  maintained.  When  the  curtain  descends 
you  know  these  people.  Many  of  them  you  like. 
You  are  prepared  to  take  a  great  interest  in  their 
subsequent  doings.  This,  we  take  it,  is  exposition 
at  its  very  best;  this  is  style  in  dramatic  technique. 

If  Mr.  Thomas  could  have  decided  at  the  end  of 
this  act  which  of  several  possible  interests  he  wished 
to  make  the  predominant  one,  and  then  kept  more 
directly  to  that,  he  would  have  written  a  fine  play, 
even  though  the  plot  is  somewhat  ordinary  and  the 
mere  emotional  interest  lacking  in  tenseness.  But 
he  drifted  off  into  various  by-channels,  and  clouded 
its  message. 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  he  did  his 
work  so  well  in  making  his  characters  human  in  the 
first  act  that  one  never  entirely  loses  regard  for  any 
one  of  them,  and  carries  away  from  the  theater,  in 
spite  of  a  confused  idea  of  why  certain  things  were 
done,  a  real  sense  of  having  intimately  known  the 
people  who  did  them.  The  play  is  annoyingly  near 
being  a  piece  of  genuine  literature. 


AS  AUGUSTUS  THOMAS  THINKS     31 

And  how  good  it  is  to  hear  the  English  language 
well  written  and  equally  well  spoken  in  our  theater ! 
John  Mason  is  peculiarly  fitted  for  his  role  of  the 
Jewish  doctor.  Here  is  a  distinguished  man  of 
science,  and  a  man  of  the  world  as  well,  who  lives 
in  a  fine  house,  wears  fine  clothes  and  speaks  fine 
English.  He  is  simple  and  quiet  and  authoritative 
in  his  manner.  He  is  actuated  by  the  highest  ideals 
of  his  profession.  And  he  never  tries  in  any  way 
to  repudiate  his  people.  Though  not  an  orthodox 
believer,  his  whole  manner  is  in  keen  contrast  to  the 
other  Jew  in  the  play,  who  harps  on  "persecution" 
and  in  general  is  that  type  we  all  know  only  too  well 
of  the  Hebrew  who  will  not  let  us  forget  his  race, 
and  who,  we  feel,  is  constantly  ashamed  of  it.  Mr. 
Mason  brings  this  finely  to  the  front.  We  suspect 
that  along  these  lines  Mr.  Thomas  might  most  profit- 
ably have  developed  his  play.  As  it  is,  he  has  but 
sketched  the  possibilities. 

Mr.  Mason  also  has  the  power  of  clear-cut,  fine 
and  sincere  speech.  His  long  professional  talks  to 
his  patients — whom  here  he  is  treating  mentally — 
are  never  mere  sermons  devised  by  the  playwright. 
They  are  actual  talks  of  a  physician  to  a  needy 
patient,  delivered  with  earnest  conviction  and 
fraught  with  significance.  The  character  does  not 


32 

call  for  any  particular  display  of  emotion.  It  does 
call  for  the  suggestion  of  great  intellectual  distinc- 

<— >\j  ^j 

tion,  a  fine  and  tender  heart,  high  professional  and 
racial  ideals,  and  the  speech  and  manner  of  a  gentle- 
man. Mr.  Mason  fits  the  role.  With  his  long  and 
sound  training  behind  him,  he  projects  the  ideal  of 
a  character  worth  knowing  and  listening  to. 

Miss  Charlotte  Ives  as  the  Jew's  sprightly  and 
sensible  daughter,  Mr.  Vincent  Serrano  as  her  young 
Christian  lover,  and  especially  Miss  Chrystal  Herne 
as  the  Christian  wife  who  revolts  from  her  husband's 
"double  code"  and  is  led  back  by  the  old  doctor's 
advice  to  her,  and  by  his  doctrine  of  the  poison  of 
hate  preached  to  her  husband,  are  most  notable  for 
persuasive  performances  in  a  well-drilled  cast.  The 
play  is  staged  in  the  key  of  nature  and  acted  with 
well-bred  distinction. 

Certainly  there  is  nothing  in  this  latest  product  of 
Mr.  Thomas,  incompletely  realized  as  its  good  in- 
tentions are,  to  make  us  regret  his  new  absorption  in 
the  "drama  of  ideas."  Never  have  his  people  been 
so  human  as  in  his  latest  play.  Never  have  their 
acts  been  so  significant  to  the  rest  of  us.  Never  has 
his  style  been  so  polished,  his  dialogue  so  fraught 
with  the  keen-edged  wit  of  his  own  conversation. 
Mr.  Thomas  has  come  to  feel  that  he  has  something 


AS  AUGUSTUS  THOMAS  THINKS     33 

to  say  through  the  medium  of  drama.  There  are 
those  who  think  what  he  has  to  say  is  not  particularly 
important,  though  we  personally  are  not  of  the  num- 
ber. But  whether  important  or  not,  the  fact  re- 
mains that  in  trying  to  say  it  in  terms  of  stage  story 
he  has  been  driven  to  pay  a  deeper  attention  to  the 
logic  of  that  story,  for  a  stage  narrative  that  pre- 
tends to  carry  a  message  is  a  hopeless  failure  if  its 
logic  anywhere  breaks  down,  or  if  its  characters  fail 
to  be  human  and  recognizably  real. 

After  all,  "as  a  man  thinks,"  so  his  work  will  be. 
We  are  glad  that  Augustus  Thomas  is  thinking  about 
interesting  and  stimulating  problems  of  our  con- 
temporary life  rather  than  about  the  peculiar  equip- 
ment of  this  or  that  star  or  about  "what  the  public 
wants."  It  has  made  a  new  man  of  him  and  added 
a  new  distinction  to  our  drama. 


BROADWAY  DISCOVERS  THE  ARABIAN 
NIGHTS 

"Kismet" — Knickerbocker  Theater, 
December  2$^  1911 

Broadway  has  discovered  "The  Arabian  Nights." 
It  is  immensely  pleased  with  the  discovery.  To  be 
sure,  Broadway  is  not  entirely  certain  yet  about 
the  new  geography.  One  man  at  "Kismet"  on 
Christmas  night  was  heard  to  inquire  if  Bagdad  were 
in  Egypt.  He  was  assured  by  his  companion  that 
it  was !  Still,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  Broadway's 
delight  upon  first  looking  into  Mr.  Knoblauch's 
Orient.  And  that  delight  will  be  shared  by  every- 
body. 

"Kismet,"  an  "Arabian  Night,"  as  the  author 
calls  it,  was  first  mounted  in  London  by  that  splen- 
did six  feet  of  histrionic  vitality,  Oscar  Ashe.  The 
American  production  has  been  made  at  the  Knicker- 
bocker Theater  by  Harrison  Grey  Fiske,  working 
with  the  financial  resources  of  his  ancient  enemies, 
Klaw  and  Erlanger,  to  back  him,  and  with  the  some- 

34 


TUCSON  HIGH  SCHOOL  LIBRARY 


THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  35 

thing  less  than  six  feet  of  vitality  known  as  Otis 
Skinner  to  give  life  to  the  leading  character.  Mr. 
Skinner  is,  in  this  country,  the  man  of  destiny  for 
the  part — abounding  energy,  triumphant  clarity  of 
speech,  romantic  swagger,  physical  picturesqueness, 
all  are  his.  For  once  the  right  part  has  come  to  the 
right  player,  the  right  play  to  the  right  producer, 
and  unlimited  financial  resources  have  been  wisely 
and  well  used,  not  squandered  in  sham  and  tinsel. 
Here's  a  Christmas  present  worth  while. 

And  what  is  "Kismet"  like?  It  is  like  a  tale 
from  the  "Arabian  Nights" — oddly  enough,  since 
that  is  what  it  pretends  to  be !  There  is  something 
little  short  of  genius  in  Mr.  Knoblauch's  inspiration 
to  make  it  so.  We  have  had  plays  of  the  Orient 
before — and  there  is  "The  Garden  of  Allah"  today. 
But  "Kismet"  is  not  of  them.  Its  ten  scenes  are  in 
the  Orient,  in  the  streets  and  bazaars  and  harems 
of  Bagdad.  Its  costumes  are  the  costumes  of  the 
Orient.  But  its  "atmosphere"  is  not  realistic.  Its 
spirit  is  not  of  today.  It  is  a  tale,  wild,  improbable, 
barbaric,  romantic,  full  at  once  of  childish  simplic- 
ity and  adult  passions,  out  of  the  "Arabian  Nights." 
It  might  have  been  told  by  Scheherazade  to  her  lord 
and  master — with  only  a  shade  more  spice  in  some 
of  the  details  had  she  supplied  them! 


36  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

That  is  the  touch  of  genius  in  Mr.  Knoblauch's 
achievement — to  dare  to  write  a  play  in  ten  scenes, 
to  dare  to  make  it  primitive  as  a  folk  tale,  bloody 
and  passionate  and  humorous  and  farther  from  the 
present  than  when  old  Omar  sang  before  his  tent  of 
the  modern  unrest  and  doubt,  a  tale  from  the  child- 
hood of  the  race.  Well,  that  is  to  show  us,  after 
all,  that  we  still  are  children  who  clamor  round  the 
story  teller's  pack. 

And  what  is  the  story  of  "Kismet'"?  Reader, 
you  ask  too  much.  It  is  nothing  about  fate,  at  any 
rate.  There  is  much  told  of  fate  in  the  "Arabian 
Nights,"  but  very  little  actual  illustration  of  it. 
Things  happen  very  conveniently.  Fate  is  Sche- 
herazade's nimble  fancy.  So  fate  in  "Kismet"  is 
Mr.  Knoblauch's  fancy,  or,  if  you  like,  it  is  our 
old  friend,  the  long  arm  of  coincidence.  Of  course, 
this  is  no  Sophoclean  drama,  though  now  and  again 
Mr.  Knoblauch  breaks  out  into  rhymed  couplets  or 
steals  a  phrase  for  a  love  scene  from  the  Song  of 
Songs  in  an  evident  endeavor  to  tone  up  his  work 
to  a  "literary"  plane.  He  doesn't  harm  its  real  lit- 
erary merits  thereby,  which  are  deeper  seated  than 
the  mere  garb  of  language.  These  merits,  as  we 
have  stated,  are  the  nai've  simplicity  and  the  wild, 


THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  37 

romantic,  exotic  flavor  of  a  tale  from  the  "Arabian 
Nights." 

But  what  is  the  tale? 

Oh,  very  well.  We'll  do  our  best  to  enlighten 
you. 

Give  ear,  O  king !  to  the  tale  of  Haj j  the  beggar, 
who  dwelt  in  Bagdad  in  the  first  year  of  the  reign 
of  the  Caliph  Abdallah  and  begged  upon  a  stone 
hard  by  the  door  of  the  Mosque  of  Carpenters,  clad 
in  filthy  rags.  Allah  is  great ! 

Now,  Hajj,  the  beggar,  had  an  ancient  enemy,  the 
sheik  Jawan,  who  had  robbed  him  of  his  wife  and 
murdered  his  son,  and  when  the  sheik  tossed  him  (in 
the  first  scene)  a  purse  of  gold  he  kept  the  purse  to 
buy  him  revenge,  though  he  took  good  care  to  spit 
upon  it  first. 

Then  rose  Hajj,  the  beggar,  and  went  unto  the 
market  place,  to  the  bazaar  of  the  tailors,  to  buy 
him  fine  raiment.  And  in  the  street  of  the  bazaars 
was  much  color  and  riot  of  tongues,  and  what  with 
the  screams  of  shopkeepers  and  the  bargaining  of 
buyers,  a  right  brave  noise.  Then  did  Hajj,  the 
beggar,  set  one  shopkeeper  over  against  another  in 
quarrel  and  run  away  with  their  cloth  stuffs.  Allah 
is  good! 


38  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Glad  therein  he  entered  his  own  courtyard,  where 
his  lovely  daughter  had  been  entertaining  the  Caliph 
(who  loved  her,  of  course)  under  the  impression 
that  he  was  the  gardener's  son.  And,  indeed,  her 
lips  were  like  a  thread  of  scarlet  and  her  speech  was 
comely,  and  her  temples  like  a  piece  of  pomegranate 
within  her  locks,  though  she  was  but  the  daughter 
of  Hajj,  the  beggar.  Allah  is  great! 

And  unto  her  entered  Hajj,  perfumed  with  myrrh 
and  frankincense,  with  all  powders  of  the  merchants 
— which  he  had  stolen. 

And  entered  after  him  the  merchants  and  the  Bag- 
dad police,  and  took  him  before  the  Wazir  Mansur, 
chief  of  police.  Now,  police  departments  were  in 
ancient  Bagdad  much  like  those  of  today.  In  a 
word,  graft!  The  Wazir  was  "in  bad"  with  his 
accounts,  and  he  wanted  the  young  Caliph  out  of 
the  way  to  avoid  an  investigation.  Just  as  his  beau- 
tiful limbed  ebony  sworder  was  about  to  chop  off 
Hajj's  thieving  right  hand,  the  Wazir  had  an  in- 
spiration. He  would  spare  Hajj  and  marry  his 
daughter,  if  Hajj  would  murder  the  Caliph  for  him. 
Now,  Hajj  loved  his  right  hand.  He  consented. 

So  we  see  Hajj  going  back  to  his  house  in  robes 
more  resplendent  than  ever  to  break  the  glad  tidings 
to  his  lovely  daughter.  But  his  lovely  daughter 


THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  39 

wanted  none  of  the  Wazir.  She  wanted  the  garden- 
er's son.  She  was  dragged  away  to  greatness  pro- 
testing violently. 

Now  do  we  see  the  Caliph  holding  court  before 
the  palace,  overlooking  the  towers  and  minarets  of 
Bagdad,  all  red  and  golden  in  the  sun,  the  sun  of 
Allah's  tropic  noon.  We  see  the  sheik,  Hajj's  foe, 
cast  temporarily  into  prison  as  a  suspicious  person. 
Next  we  see  Hajj,  as  a  juggler,  come  with  half- 
naked  dancers  from  Egypt  to  amuse  the  Caliph,  who, 
in  all  sooth,  cares  not  for  the  dancers  but  smells  of 
a  rose  given  to  him  by  Hajj's  daughter,  herself  the 
Rose  of  Sharon.  Hajj  stabs  the  Caliph — the  beg- 
gar is  good  for  his  bargain.  But  under  these  white 
robes  of  state  the  Caliph  wears — oh,  Allah  be 
praised ! — is  a  shirt  of  mail.  The  blow  is  harmless. 
Now  is  poor  Hajj  cast  into  a  dungeon,  deep  and 
dark. 

But  Allah  is  good !  Therein  is  his  foe,  the  sheik. 
Hajj  breaks  his  chains  and  murders  his  foe  with  a 
triumphant  laugh.  Then,  when  the  gaoler  comes 
to  release  the  sheik,  who  is  pardoned,  it  is  Hajj  who 
is  carried  out  and  the  dead  body  of  the  sheik  the  cruel 
gaoler  kicks  with  his  pointed  shoe.  Allah  is  all- 
powerful  ! 

Goes  Hajj  now  by  a  secret  passage  he  has  discov- 


40  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

cred — praise  be  to  Allah  and  one  of  the  Wazir's 
disgruntled  wives ! — to  the  Wazir's  harem,  to  rescue 
his  daughter  from  the  man  he  now  realizes  will  be 
overthrown  and  disgraced  by  the  Caliph.  We  look 
upon  the  harem,  aye,  upon  the  unveiled  inmates 
pass  we  masculine  judgment.  Unveiled?  nay, 
more,  two  or  three  undress  completely  and  dive  into 
a  pool,  like  small  boys  into  the  swimming  hole  when 
a  carry-all  is  heard  coming  up  the  road  close  by. 
[It  may  be  recalled,  to  come  down  to  the  current 
year,  that  in  Siam  dramatic  realism  is  carried  to  a 
similar  conclusion,  ladies  bathing  on  the  stage  when 
no  men  characters  are  present,  in  total  oblivion  of 
an  audience.  Thus  do  realism  and  romance  touch 
hands!]  We  see  the  Rose  of  Sharon  brought  pro- 
testing in,  and  we  see  the  Wazir  gloat  over  her. 
She  is  led  out  to  be  robed  in  state  for  the  nuptial  as 
Hajj,  none  too  soon,  comes  up  through  a  trapdoor 
in  the  stage — pardon,  through  a  trap  in  the  floor  of 
the  harem,  under  a  real  Turkish  rug. 

Ha,  Ha!  Hajj  discovers  that  the  Wazir  is  the 
son  of  the  sheik.  He  has  killed  the  father.  Now 
for  the  son!  The  deed  is  done.  The  Wazir  is 
shoved  into  the  pool  where  the  harem  inmates  late 
have  bathed.  Hajj  holds  him  under  and  counts  the 
diminishing  bubbles  as  they  rise.  Hamilton  Re- 


THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  41 

velle,  the  actor  of  the  Wazir,  appears  no  more  upon 
the  scene.  Hajj  rises  from  the  now  bubbleless  pool 
and  laughs  a  mocking  laugh.  His  revenge  is  com- 
pleted. Allah  is  good! 

Now  comes  the  Caliph  seeking  frantically  for  his 
Rose  of  Sharon.  He  is  in  good  time.  He  takes  her 
to  be  his  bride,  king  and  beggar  maid,  romantic  pair, 
starry  lovers  of  fable  since  kings  were,  and  their 
places  but  ill  supplied  by  the  millionaires  and  tele- 
phone operators  of  our  latter  day  degenerate  drama ! 

But  Hajj,  poor  Hajj,  is  banished  from  Bagdad, 
though  he  be  the  royal  father-in-law.  He  is  to  go 
at  sunrise  of  this  night  which  now  closes  his  one 
stormy  and  romantic  day  of  glory  and  revenge.  As 
the  final  curtain  falls,  he  has  thrown  another  beggar 
from  his  stone  before  the  mosque  of  carpenters,  and 
clad  in  his  rags  once  more  we  see  him  where  we  saw 
him  first,  and  hear  him  say  "Alms,  for  the  love  of 
Allah ;  for  the  love  of  Allah,  alms !"  And  then  we 
hear  him  snore.  The  moonlight  sleeps  on  Bagdad's 
roofs  and  touches  to  silver  the  distant  domes  and 
minarets.  Hajj  has  had  his  day.  Tomorrow — 

Tomorrow,  we  go  down  to  Wall  Street  again. 

The  one  part  in  this  naive  and  romantic  fable 
which  links  its  picturesque  episodes  together  and 
gives  it  a  personal  and  dramatic  interest  is  that  of 


42 

Hajj,  the  beggar,  and,  of  course,  Mr.  Skinner  is 
amply  able  to  fill  the  bill,  the  more  as  that  slight  note 
of  unreality  in  his  acting  which  sometimes  mars  his 
impersonations  of  seriously  romantic  roles  or  roles 
in  modern  plays,  here  admirably  blends  with  the 
glamour  of  dreamlike  fable.  His  impersonation  is 
consistently  the  beggar,  though  the  part  is  rather 
sketched  broadly  than  characterized  in  detail. 
Never  for  an  instant  is  he  anything  else,  be  his  bor- 
rowed robes  ever  so  grand.  It  is  lit  with  a  grim, 
masculine  humor,  it  is  touched  with  tenderness  for 
his  daughter  and  with  fierce  passions  of  revenge. 
But  humor,  tenderness,  passion,  are  all  held  in  the 
key  of  romantic  fable,  and  so  while  he  counts  the 
bubbles  that  arise  from  the  drowning  Wazir  there 
is  no  horror  in  the  episode,  and  when  he  goes  to  sleep 
again  at  last  in  his  beggar's  rags  there  is  no  sorrow 
— only  a  half  smile  for  the  round-the-circle  logic  of 
it,  and  the  pleasant  finish  to  a  good  tale  told. 

And  Mr.  Skinner's  speech  is  a  perpetual  delight. 
He  was  trained  in  the  days  when  the  ability  to  speak 
well  was  supposed  to  be  a  part  of  an  actor's  equip- 
ment. 

Alas!  so  much  cannot  be  said  for  Hamilton  Re- 
velle.  We  suspect  those  bubbles  were  in  his  mouth 
all  along.  Fred  Eric,  as  the  Caliph,  however,  spoke 


THE  ARABIAN  NIGHTS  43 

beautifully — if  somewhat  sentimentally.  The  cos- 
tumes, by  Percy  Anderson  of  London,  were  rich, 
harmonious,  beautiful,  and  we  fancy,  from  Mr.  An- 
derson's past  records,  probably  not  incorrect  to 
ancient  Oriental  life.  The  scenery  was  good,  the 
many  changes  made  with  astonishing  speed  and 
smoothness,  the  crowds  well  handled,  the  "atmos- 
phere" created.  Perhaps  we  might  cavil  at  the 
entre-act  music,  which  was  Oriental  chiefly  by  its 
monotony. 

But  why  cavil  before  a  feast  of  so  much  good 
fare?  "Kismet"  is  what  it  claims  to  be,  an  Arabian 
night  on  the  stage.  It  has  done  what  it  set  out  to 
do,  and  having  arrived  at  something  long,  long  ago 
proved  to  be  potent  over  the  human  spirit,  its  pop- 
ular success  cannot  be  doubted  now.  Human 
nature  hasn't  so  greatly  changed  since  Scheherazade 
told  her  tales. 

Allah  be  praised! 


CHEWING  GUM  AND  REFORM 

"Broadway  Jones" — George  M.  Cohan  Theater •, 
September  23*  1912 

The  good  spirits  who  hover  over  babies'  cradles 
bearing  gifts  were  generous  with  George  M.  Cohan. 
They  gave  him  nimble  legs,  and  a  knack  of  whistling 
up  tunes  from  the  vasty  void  of  memory,  and  con- 
siderable comic  ability  as  an  actor,  and  finally  the 
born  playwright's  gift — which  can  never  be  acquired 
by  purchase — of  setting  upon  the  stage,  in  terms  of 
speech  and  action,  exactly  the  episodes  of  a  story 
which  the  audience  wishes  to  see. 

More's  the  pity,  then,  that  the  good  spirits  could 
not  have  a  little  further  endowed  him  with  the  attri- 
butes of  good  taste  and  a  knowledge  of  life.  If  they 
had  he  would  be  deserving  of  the  praise  which  Arnold 
Bennett  recently  heaped  upon  him.  Mr.  Bennett 
admired  his  works  because  they  were  strictly  Ameri- 
can and  "unpretentious." 

That's  so  like  Mr.  Bennett! 

Of  course,  what  he  meant  was,  that  they  were 

44 


CHEWING  GUM  AND  REFORM       45 

American  because  vulgar,  or  without  good  taste,  and 
"unpretentious"  because  simple  minded  and  super- 
ficial. Mr.  Bennett  is  typically  an  insular,  middle- 
class,  educated  Briton.  Hence  his  unconscious  pat- 
ronage. Who  but  such  a  one  could  praise  George 
M.  Cohan  by  insulting  America? 

However,  this  isn't  to  be  about  Arnold  Bennett, 
but  Mr.  Cohan.  Cohan's  latest  play,  "Broadway 
Jones,"  is  now  current  in  New  York,  and  success- 
ful, and  Mr.  Cohan  acts  the  leading  part,  while  his 
papa  and  mamma  act  other  parts  therein.  It  is  Co- 
han's second  "straight"  play,  without  music,  the  first 
being  "Popularity,"  which  belied  its  title  some  years 
ago.  "Get  Rich  Quick  Wallingford"  was  made 
from  somebody  else's  story,  so  does  not  count. 

In  "Broadway  Jones"  Cohan  has  deliberately  set 
out  to  write  a  comedy  with  some  definite  character 
study  in  it,  and  character  development,  and  to  act 
this  character  himself  in  a  legitimate  vein.  More  re- 
markable still,  he  has  to  a  considerable  degree  suc- 
ceeded. His  success  up  to  a  certain  point,  indeed, 
is  brilliant,  and  when  he  fails  he  fails  for  exactly 
these  two  reasons — his  lack  of  good  taste  and  his  lack 
of  a  real  knowledge  of  the  world. 

"Broadway"  Jones  is  a  young  sport  who  was  born 
in  a  "jay"  town  in  Connecticut — all  towns  which  are 


46  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

not  New  York  being  jay  towns  to  Mr.  Cohan. 
There  his  father  ran  a  chewing  gum  factory.  But 
young  Jones  came  to  Broadway  when  his  father  died, 
leaving  his  uncle  to  make  the  chewing  gum,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  hit  the  high  spots.  When  the  play  opens 
we  see  "Broadway"  coming  home  in  the  cold  gray 
dawn  to  his  luxurious  apartment,  in  a  condition  of 
alcoholic  fuddle  which  provides  a  comedy  scene  with 
the  butler. 

Later,  when  "Broadway"  has  sobered  up,  we  learn 
that  he  is  $50,000  in  debt,  and  has,  the  night  before, 
engaged  himself  to  a  rich  widow  old  enough  to  be 
his  mother,  a  horrible  creature  no  less  repulsive  be- 
cause she  is  more  or  less  copied  from  an  actual  female 
well  known  to  the  Broadway  of  reality.  There  is 
something  so  inherently  vulgar  in  the  character  and 
the  episode  that  we  instinctively  lose  sympathy  with 
"Broadway"  at  once.  He  sinks  below  the  level  of 
comedy.  If  Mr.  Cohan  had  good  taste  he  would 
know  this. 

Scarcely  have  we  seen  the  widow  when  the  news 
comes  to  "Broadway"  that  his  uncle  has  died,  leav- 
ing him  the  chewing  gum  business,  and  hard  upon 
this  news  comes  an  offer  from  the  chewing  gum 
trust  to  buy  him  out  for  a  million.  "Broadway" 


CHEWING  GUM  AND  REFORM       47 

smashes  the  furniture  in  his  joy,  and  flies  from  the 
widow  to  Connecticut. 

The  rest  of  the  play  takes  place  in  the  Connecticut 
village,  either  in  the  home  of  a  simple  family  there 
or  in  the  chewing  gum  works.  Some  of  it  is  farce, 
some  of  it  is  caricature,  some  of  it  actually  succeeds 
in  being  what  Mr.  Cohan  evidently  intended — a 
study  in  character  development — for  young  Broad- 
way becomes  sobered  by  the  situation,  realizes  that 
to  sell  out  the  business  means  the  ruin  of  the  town, 
has  his  family  pride  and  fighting  blood  aroused,  and 
finally  settles  down  to  marry  a  nice  girl  and  run 
the  gum  plant. 

The  skill  with  which  Mr.  Cohan  has  indicated  the 
humorous  effect  upon  the  young  rounder  of  these 
new  ideas  of  responsibility  is  capital  comedy.  Par- 
ticularly happy  is  "Broadway's"  delight  over  his 
first  speech  to  his  workmen,  so  that  he  goes  out  and 
makes  another  speech  every  so  often.  Not  only  is 
this  well  indicated  in  the  play,  but  it  is  capitally 
enacted  by  the  author.  Mr.  Cohan  has  dropped  his 
nasal  twang.  Most  of  the  time  he  stands  up 
straight.  Only  occasionally  does  he  try  to  be  hu- 
morous with  his  legs;  very  frequently  he  talks  like 
a  normal  human  being,  and  points  his  comedy  by 


48  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

legitimate  methods.  You  can  laugh  at  him  with- 
out being  ashamed  of  yourself,  and  you  can  enjoy 
the  genuine  touches  of  character  delineation  from 
curtain  to  curtain. 

Yet  the  play  leaves  you  emotionally  quite  cold. 
It  never  gets  below  laughter.  After  all,  as  Kipling 
might  have  said,  "What  do  they  know  of  Broadway 
who  only  Broadway  know1?"  Young  Jones'  slang 
is  very  funny  and  bright.  Mr.  Cohan's  situations 
follow  each  other  with  rapid-fire  and  sure  develop- 
ment. Yet  all  the  time  we  know  in  our  hearts  that 
any  youth  who  could  have  sold  himself  even  tem- 
porarily for  money  to  such  a  creature  as  the  Broad- 
way widow  here  depicted  is  not  lightly  to  be  re- 
formed; that  all  this  midnight  "sousing"  where  the 
bright  lights  gleam  is  a  more  serious  matter  than  Mr. 
Cohan  realizes;  and,  finally,  that  the  interjection  of 
a  stunted  male  actor  in  the  part  of  a  fat  "boy"  who 
talks  what  is  known  as  Reub  dialect  doesn't  quite 
adequately  mark  the  difference  between  life  on 
Broadway  and  life  in  Connecticut. 

In  other  words,  Mr.  Cohan's  play  is  entirely  super- 
ficial. It  is  bright,  it  has  the  rapid  and  sure  com- 
plexity and  development  of  farce,  it  is  filled  with 
shrewdly  caught  touches  of  observation,  both  of 
manners  and  superficial  traits  of  character.  But  it 


CHEWING  GUM  AND  REFORM       49 

is  lacking,  naturally,  in  good  taste  and  distinction, 
and  it  is  lacking  in  that  deeper  understanding  of 
men  and  of  life  which  makes  for  true  comedy  and 
gives  reality  and  emotional  glow  to  the  puppets  in 
a  play. 

But  it  marks,  nevertheless,  a  considerable  step  for- 
ward for  Mr.  Cohan.  Perhaps,  if  he  should  go  to 
a  Connecticut  village  and  live  there  an  entire  year, 
never  once  visiting  Broadway  during  his  stay,  never 
once  reading  a  copy  of  the  Morning  Telegraph,  he 
might  write  an  even  better  play  at  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  month.  He  might.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
might  be  too  bored  to  write  anything. 


A  QUAINT  TALE  FROM  THE  ORIENT 

"The  Yellow  Jacket"—  Fulton  Theater, 
November 


It  seems  thrice  a  pity  that  there  is  not  yet 
organized  in  New  York  a  branch  of  the  Drama 
League,  or  some  kindred  organization,  which  could 
come  to  the  rescue  of  "The  Yellow  Jacket,"  now 
struggling  for  survival  at  the  Fulton  Theater.  For 
here  is  one  of  the  most  interesting,  novel  and  well- 
mounted  plays  of  the  season,  suffering  the  usual  fate 
of  the  innovator.  Yet  those  who  do  see  it  come 
away  delighted.  It  needs  an  "organized  audience" 
to  give  it  a  helping  hand. 

"The  Yellow  Jacket"  is  not  a  wasp.  It  is  a  real 
Chinese  play,  or  rather  a  mosaic  of  several  Chinese 
plays,  adapted  by  George  C.  Hazelton  and  the  actor, 
Benrimo,  and  staged  by  the  latter.  Mr.  Benrimo 
came  from  the  old  San  Francisco,  and  he  has  ob- 
served the  Chinese  Theater  for  many  years.  It  is 
said  he  is  more  familiar  with  its  methods  than  almost 
any  other  American,  at  least  any  American  connected 

So 


QUAINT  TALE  FROM  THE  ORIENT     51 

with  our  stage.  We  must  therefore  believe  that 
when  he  says  he  has  staged  "The  Yellow  Jacket" 
in  the  Chinese  manner  he  is  telling  the  truth.  Any- 
how, he  has  staged  it  in  a  manner  totally  different 
from  our  own,  a  manner  quaint,  childlike,  nai've — 
and  beautiful.  It  seems  to  us  authentically  Orien- 
tal, different,  primitive,  and  we  yield  to  its  spell. 
That  is  the  main  thing.  If  he  has  also  shown  us  a 
true  picture  of  Chinese  theatrical  customs  and  con- 
ventions, so  much  the  better. 

We  do  not  pretend  to  know  the  names  of  the 
original  sources  of  "The  Yellow  Jacket,"  nor 
whether  they  were  works  of  the  Ming  dynasty  or 
some  other  dynasty,  whether  they  are  six  hundred 
years  old  or  six.  The  chances  are  they  antedate 
Shakespeare,  of  course.  As  the  play  has  reached 
us,  it  is  a  simple  little  story,  with  allegorical  and  fan- 
tastic embellishments,  of  mother  love  and  brave- 
hearted  youth  triumphant  over  obstacles,  and  re- 
warded at  last  by  the  lips  of  a  lady  fair.  It  is  a 
tale  old  as  this  old  earth. 

It  seems  that  Wu  Sin  Yin,  governor  of  a  province, 
had  two  wives.  The  first  one  had  given  birth  to 
an  infant,  Wu  Hoo  Git,  who  was  regarded  as  ugly 
by  all  save  his  mother,  Chee  Moo.  Now  Wu  Sin 
Yin  wished  to  get  her  and  the  brat  out  of  the  way 


52  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

that  he  might  have  a  beautiful  heir  by  his  second 
wife,  so  he  ordered  a  farmer  to  kill  her.  The 
farmer,  however,  killed  a  flirtatious  maid  instead, 
mutilating  her  features  to  escape  detection,  and  little 
Wu  Hoo  Git  was  carried  off  by  the  farmer  and  his 
wife  (Chee  Moo  having  died)  and  raised  secretly 
as  their  foster  child. 

When  next  we  see  him,  Wu  Hoo  Git  has  come  to 
man's  estate.  He  is  now  a  beautiful  youth,  going 
forth  to  see  the  world  and  conquer  back  his  kingdom 
from  the  elegant  Wu  Fab  Din,  child  of  the  second 
wife.  Wu  Fab  Din  is  called  The  Daffodil,  and 
he  is  a  Chinese  Bunthorne.  On  his  quest  of  the 
Yellow  Jacket  (emblem  of  his  true  rank),  Wu  Hoo 
Git  is  accompanied  by  an  aged  philosopher,  a  sort 
of  Chinese  Wotan,  though  less  loquacious.  He  falls 
into  the  trap  of  pleasure  and  is  lured  by  the  maids 
who  sell  their  love  for  gold.  He  crosses  high  moun- 
tains, deep  streams,  endures  snow  and  cold,  meets 
the  thunder  god  and  the  great  spider,  but  ultimately 
he  conquers  his  rival,  aided  by  his  mother's  spirit 
looking  down  from  heaven,  and  by  his  sweetheart's 
slipper — his  sweetheart,  the  lovely  Plum  Blossom. 

Now,  all  this  is  but  a  simple,  nai've  folk  tale, 
played  by  Saxon  actors  and  actresses  dressed  up  in 
Chinese  robes,  yet  so  quaintly  is  it  presented  and  so 


QUAINT  TALE  FROM  THE  ORIENT     53 

artlessly  sincere  have  the  adapters  kept  it  that  we 
believe  it  all,  even  when  we  smile  at  it,  and  more 
than  once  it  touches  our  hearts. 

The  curtain  rises  on  a  second  curtain,  or  pair  of 
curtains,  embroidered  with  dragons,  and  between 
these  curtains  comes  the  Chinese  property  man,  who 
is  supposed  to  be  invisible  to  the  audience.  He  non- 
chalantly sucks  a  cigarette  and  beats  a  gong.  Props 
is  played  by  Arthur  Shaw,  a  son  of  Mary  Shaw,  and 
though  he  does  not  speak  a  word  during  the  entire 
performance,  and  is  supposed  to  be  invisible,  his 
complete  indifference  to  the  play  and  his  perfunctory 
performance  of  his  various  duties  are  irresistibly 
comic.  After  Props  has  beaten  his  gong  Chorus 
comes  forth,  impersonated  by  Signor  Perugini. 
Chorus  bows,  although  admitting  it  is  a  little  below 
his  dignity,  thanks  the  audience  for  assembling  and 
bids  them,  if  they  find  anything  amusing  in  the  play, 
to  honorably  smile.  (Yes,  he  splits  his  infinitive.) 
He  does  not  disclose  the  authorship  of  the  play,  and 
he  is  abruptly  cut  off  in  his  urbanities  by  Props  again 
with  his  gong. 

Now  the  curtains  part,  and  we  see  the  stage  set 
as  a  great,  high  interior  of  gold,  evidently  represent- 
ing the  interior  of  a  Chinese  theater.  At  the  back, 
center,  is  an  alcove  where  the  musicians  sit.  At  the 


54  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

back,  right  and  left,  are  two  doors  for  the  entrance 
and  exit  of  characters.  The  Chorus  has  a  little  table 
in  front  of  the  band,  where  he  sits  and  explains  what 
goes  on.  Props  has  a  big  box  and  a  pile  of  furni- 
ture at  one  side — all  the  paraphernalia  needed  to 
dress  the  stage  for  the  various  scenes.  He  has  also 
two  or  three  assistants,  whom  he  kicks  about. 

Now  the  first  scene  is  a  room  in  Wu  Sin  Yin's 
palace,  so  Props  puts  a  table  in  the  center  of  the 
stage,  a  stiff  black  chair  on  either  side  of  it,  and 
stands  behind  one  of  the  chairs  with  a  cushion  in  his 
hand,  scornfully  puffing  his  cigarette.  Chorus  tells 
us  this  is  a  room  in  the  palace,  and  Wu  Sin  Yin  en- 
ters, walks  down  the  stage  and  informs  the  audience 
who  he  honorably  is.  Then  he  goes  to  the  chair, 
Props  puts  the  cushion  under  him,  and  he  sits.  As 
the  other  characters  enter  they,  too,  tell  who  they 
are.  We  speedily  learn  of  Wu  Sin  Yin's  plot  to 
have  his  first  wife  and  baby  killed,  and  the  scene 
changes  to  Chee  Moo's  garden — a  change  accom- 
plished merely  by  removing  the  chairs  and  table. 
Chee  Moo  enters  with  a  piece  of  wood  dressed  in  a 
baby  dress.  The  audience,  of  course,  laughs  at  this, 
as  it  has  laughed  at  much  before.  But  she  has  not 
spoken  three  words  to  this  stick  of  wood  before  the 
audience  is  listening  attentively,  the  stick  of  wood 


QUAINT  TALE  FROM  THE  ORIENT     55 

forgotten.  After  all,  it  is  quite  as  real  as  the  baby 
dolls  we  use  to  represent  infants  in  arms  on  our 
western  stage! 

When  Lee  Sin,  the  farmer,  slays  Fancy  Beauty, 
the  pert  maid,  instead  of  Chee  Moo,  there  is  another 
laugh,  because  he  cuts  off  her  head  by  pulling  a  red 
bean  bag  from  under  her  kimono  and  holding  it 
aloft.  Again,  when  Chee  Moo  dies,  leaving  her 
babe  in  a  garden,  there  is  a  laugh,  because  Props 
brings  a  ladder,  leans  it  against  a  balcony  built  over 
the  alcove  where  the  band  is  stationed,  and  Chee 
Moo  climbs  this  to  heaven.  Yet,  as  she  stands  on 
the  balcony  looking  down  upon  her  stick-of-wood 
babe  once  more,  you  forget  to  laugh,  your  imagina- 
tion catching  you  up. 

Here  ends  part  one  of  the  play,  and  Chorus  comes 
out,  delighted  at  the  applause,  and  now  confesses 
that  he  himself  wrote  the  drama  and  drilled  all  the 
players.  He  honorably  bows  his  thanks. 

Part  two  shows  the  babe,  Wu  Hoo  Git,  grown  a 
fine  young  man,  in  the  home  of  the  farmer ;  a  hand- 
some youth,  full  of  fire,  eager  to  learn  of  the  world. 
And  he  goes  forth  to  learn.  Now  the  false  heir  to 
his  father's  province,  the  Daffodil,  tries  to  thwart 
him,  and  first  sends  the  Purveyor  of  Hearts,  a  hunch- 
back, to  tempt  him  with  pleasure.  Four  little  maids 


56  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

not  exactly  from  school  are  offered  for  his  inspec- 
tion, and  he  buys  one,  and  together  they  go  out  on 
the  River  of  Love.  Here  Props  gets  busy.  He 
builds  a  boat  by  means  of  four  chairs  and  a  strip  of 
cloth.  Two  assistant  props  stand  at  the  stern  with 
poles  and  pretend  to  row.  One  man  in  the  orches- 
tra rubs  sand-paper  to  simulate  the  swish  of  waves, 
and  the  two  young  people  recline  in  the  craft  and 
float  down  the  stream.  At  first  a  snicker  goes  up 
from  the  audience.  But  George  Relph,  who  plays 
Wu  Hoo  Git,  is  a  good  actor.  So  honest,  so  poetic 
is  his  impersonation  of  this  youth  just  captured  by 
the  snare  of  love,  and  so  honest  and  quaint  is  the 
writing  of  the  scene,  that  in  a  moment  laughter 
ceases.  Another  moment,  and  that  is  a  boat  up 
there  in  the  moonlight.  This,  of  course,  is  not  alone 
the  Chinese  stage.  It  is  the  stage  of  Shakespeare — 
the  platform  stage  of  many  a  masterpiece ;  and  once 
more  it  demonstrates  how  much  of  a  convention,  a 
custom  merely,  is  the  realistic  scenery  of  today. 

Wu  Hoo  Git  is  soon  disillusioned  about  his  little 
love-girl,  and  presently  falls  truly  in  love  with  the 
maiden  Plum  Blossom.  He  falls  in  love  with  her 
in  a  graveyard,  where  he  is  seeking  for  his  mother's 
tomb.  Props  makes  a  graveyard  by  hanging  white 
cloths,  covered  with  inscriptions,  over  the  backs  of 


QUAINT  TALE  FROM  THE  ORIENT     57 

chairs,  and  then  standing  bored  in  a  corner  himself, 
holding  up  a  bamboo  pole  to  impersonate  a  weeping 
willow  tree.  At  the  end  of  this  act,  of  course,  Wu 
Hoo  Git  learns  who  he  really  is,  and  sets  forth  to 
oust  the  Daffodil. 

The  Daffodil  appears  to  have  been  a  powerful  as 
well  as  elegant  person.  He  had  command  over 
magic.  He  is  most  wonderfully  well  played  by 
Schuyler  Ladd,  who  smells  of  flowers  held  for  him  by 
the  "invisible"  Props  with  languid  grace,  and  speaks 
with  a  diction  and  clarity  rare  on  our  stage.  He 
throws  mountains  and  rivers  and  snowstorms  in  his 
enemy's  path.  Props  makes  the  mountain  out  of 
two  tables  and  four  chairs,  and  Wu  Hoo  Git  and  the 
old  philosopher  who  accompanies  him  struggle  up. 
Props  builds  the  great  river  by  putting  a  plank  bridge 
across  two  chairs.  Props  makes  the  snowstorm  by 
scattering  a  few  bits  of  torn  paper.  Now,  this  all 
sounds  like  one  of  Everett  Shinn's  burlesques,  but 
the  smile  at  Props  at  once  gives  way  when  the  actors 
come  on,  because  they  are  playing  sincerely  a  sincere 
story,  which  captures  you  out  of  the  ages  and  the 
alien  lands.  As  an  illustration  of  the  imaginative 
touches  in  which  this  tale  abounds  we  may  cite  the 
death  of  the  old  philosopher,  in  the  snowstorm.  He 
lies  down  to  die,  and  Props  kicks  a  red  cushion  under 


58  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

his  head.  Then  the  actor  gets  up,  leaving  his  cloak 
behind,  and  mounts  the  ladder  to  heaven.  Wu  Hoo 
Git  comes  and  lifts  the  cloak  on  the  ground,  speaking 
to  the  dead  "form"  beneath  it.  That  simple  little 
piece  of  primitive  stage  business  has  all  the  stab  of 
spiritual  allegory.  Of  course  Wu  Hoo  Git  conquers 
the  Daffodil  at  last,  and  banishes  him  to  a  garden, 
there  to  smell  lovely  odors  forever,  and  marries  his 
sweetheart,  Plum  Blossom,  as  the  Yellow  Jacket  is 
put  about  his  honorable  shoulders. 

A  word  must  be  said  for  the  music  which  almost 
incessantly  accompanies  this  play.  William  Furst 
wrote  it.  It  is  played  on  instruments  approximating 
the  Chinese,  and  is  made  up  of  Chinese  rhythms, 
square-toed  and  monotonous.  Yet  this  music  never 
obtrudes,  it  cleverly  avoids  monotony,  and  it  con- 
sistently heightens  the  scenes  where  it  is  employed. 
It  is  another  feature  of  this  rich  and  rare  entertain- 
ment where  perfect  taste  and  artistic  discretion  and 
restraint  have  been  successfully  employed. 

"The  Yellow  Jacket"  is  a  triumph  for  everybody 
concerned — including  the  Chinese  authors  of  the 
originals ! 


BELASCO  AND  HYPNOTISM 

"The  Case  of  Becky"— Belasco  Theater, 
October  I,  1912 

In  "The  Case  of  Becky,"  by  Edward  Locke,  Mr. 
Belasco  has  followed  the  lead  he  opened  in  "The  Re- 
turn of  Peter  Grimm,"  and  has  sought  once  more  to 
stage  something  "psychic."  Just  as  in  "The  Return 
of  Peter  Grimm,"  he  based  his  tale  on  publications 
of  the  psychic  researchers,  here  the  tale  is  based  quite 
evidently  on  the  published  records  of  cases  of  so- 
called  dual  personality,  particularly,  we  fancy,  on 
certain  cases  described  by  Dr.  Morton  Prince  of 
Boston.  Of  course,  being  Belasco,  what  he  has 
really  sought  to  do  is  to  give  the  old  tale  of  Dr. 
Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  a  scientific  varnish,  and  an 
element  of  novelty,  also,  supplied  by  making  the 
hero-villain  a  girl  instead  of  a  man. 

The  scene  is  laid  in  the  sanatorium  of  Dr.  Emer- 
son, a  noted  specialist  in  psychotherapy.  The  Doc- 
tor's pet  patient  is  a  girl  named  Dorothy,  who  is  a 
sweet,  lovely  maid  as  Dorothy,  but  who  is  constantly 

59 


60  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

waking  up  to  find  herself  Becky,  a  nasty  little  bag- 
gage who  hates  Dorothy  and  all  her  ways.  In  short, 
when  this  heroine  is  Dorothy  she  is  very,  very  good, 
but  when  she  is  Becky  she  is  horrid.  It  seems  that 
hitherto  Becky  has  resisted  all  efforts  of  the  Doctor 
— "Old  Owl  Eyes,"  she  calls  him — to  hypnotize 
her,  and  so  to  suggest  to  her  that  she  is  dead  and  can 
never  come  back  any  more.  But  the  time  is  ap- 
proaching when  the  Doctor  feels  he  is  going  to 
master  her.  That  is  the  beginning  of  the  action. 

Now,  the  Doctor  has  never  been  able  to  learn  cer- 
tain facts  in  his  patient's  past  life,  which  is  rather 
an  odd  state  of  affairs  for  a  famous  psychotherapist. 
He  has  not  discovered  that  as  a  child  Dorothy  was 
the  "subject"  of  a  travelling  hypnotist,  a  profes- 
sional showman  who  claimed  to  be  her  father,  and 
in  that  life  learned  all  the  evil  talk  and  thoughts 
which  she  exhibits  as  Becky.  He  does  know,  how- 
ever, that  many  years  ago  his  own  wife  fell  under  the 
influence  of  a  travelling  hypnotist,  and  ran  away 
from  him.  Does  not  the  plot  begin  to  emerge*? 

Yes,  it  is  even  as  you  suspect.  A  travelling  hyp- 
notist appears  in  the  first  act  and  he  is  the  man  who 
once  led  Dorothy  round  the  country  and  from  whom 
she  ran  away.  He  wants  her  back.  He  "calls"  to 
her  and  she  comes  down  the  winding  stairs.  The  rest 


BELASCO  AND  HYPNOTISM          61 

of  the  play  is  a  battle  for  the  possession  of  the  girl's 
mind,  as  it  were,  between  these  two  men,  doctor 
and  hypnotist.  We  scent  the  end  from  afar.  The 
last  act  shows  the  doctor's  laboratory  at  night,  a 
fascinating  piece  of  Belascan  realism,  with  white 
walls  and  strange  machines,  such  as  the  lullaby  in- 
strument which  croons  like  the  wind  and  sings  on 
three  sweet  notes,  and  the  static  machine  with  its 
crackling,  leaping  spark,  and  that  curious  machine, 
of  which  we  know  not  the  name,  which  seems  to  be 
composed  of  a  small  electric  fan  blade,  brilliantly 
illuminated,  into  which  the  subject  looks  as  it  re- 
volves till  the  hypnotic  sleep  comes. 

It  is  into  this  strange  room  that  the  doctor  lures 
the  hypnotist,  conquers  him  by  the  aid  of  the  ma- 
chine, and  while  he  has  him  in  his  power  learns  what 
he  has  suspected — that  it  was  he  who  robbed  him  of 
his  wife.  Of  course,  he  further  learns  that  Dorothy 
is  not  the  hypnotist's  daughter,  but  his  own  child. 
His  revenge  is  strictly  scientific.  He  takes  away  the 
showman's  powers,  thus  depriving  him  of  all  means 
of  a  livelihood,  and  sends  him  forth  a  ruined  man. 

Science  and  the  dear  old  sentimental  melodrama 
are  curiously  jumbled  in  this  essentially  improbable 
fabric.  It  is  sometimes  Mr.  Belasco's  triumph  to 
make  us  forget  the  essential  triteness  of  his  themes  in 


62  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

the  magic  of  his  narration.  Here  we  do  not  feel 
that  he  has  succeeded.  He  has  failed,  too,  in  another 
respect,  very  strange  for  him.  In  a  play  written  to 
exploit  a  star,  the  star's  part  sinks  to  a  secondary 
place.  This  drama  is  far  more  a  struggle  between 
the  two  men  than  it  is  a  tale  of  Dorothy's  dual  per- 
sonality. The  good  little  Dorothy  and  the  bad 
little  Becky  are  both  shown  to  us,  and  Miss  Starr  has 
a  chance  to  make  the  change  from  one  to  the  other 
before  our  eyes,  as  Mansfield  did  in  "Dr.  Jekyll  and 
Mr.  Hyde."  (We  cannot  truthfully  say  that  it  in- 
spired us  with  quite  the  same  sensations  of  delicious, 
shivery  horror.)  But  our  interest  is  far  less  in  her 
than  in  the  struggle  between  the  two  men  for  pos- 
session of  her.  Miss  Starr  is  the  pawn  in  her  own 
play. 

However,  that  is  only  Miss  Starr's  and  Mr.  Belas- 
co's  concern.  We  are  just  as  ready  to  enjoy  a  drama 
about  two  men  as  about  one  girl.  What  concerns  us 
is  the  illusion  created,  or  not  created,  in  the  telling. 
For  the  present  writer,  illusion  was  not  created,  nor 
did  it  appear  to  be  for  many  in  the  audience  with 
him.  The  causes  of  failure  are  interesting,  and  they 
seemed  to  lie  deeper  than  the  acting,  or  even  the 
staging.  They  seemed  to  be  inherent  in  the  material 
of  the  play. 


BELASCO  AND  HYPNOTISM          63 

In  the  course  of  the  play,  Dr.  Emerson  explains 
it  was  not  really  the  magic  drug  which  turned  Dr. 
Jekyll  into  Mr.  Hyde,  but  auto-suggestion  for  which 
the  drug  pulled  the  trigger,  as  it  were.  Dr.  Jekyll's 
was  really  a  case  of  dual  personality,  a  case  for  the 
pathologist.  So  be  it,  but  so  long  as  the  case  of 
Dr.  Jekyll  is  kept  in  the  regions  of  romance  and 
mystery,  so  long  as  it  is  a  strange  kind  of  fairy  tale, 
we  in  the  theatre  are  ready  to  believe  it.  It  be- 
comes true  for  us.  Reduce  it  to  the  scientific  terms 
of  pathology  and  it  loses  its  romance  and  its  wonder, 
it  becomes  just  an  unusual  hospital  case,  so  unusual 
that  it  fails  to  appeal  to  our  experiences,  and  so 
seems  somehow  untrue. 

Just  so  "The  Case  of  Becky"  seems  to  us,  by  try- 
ing to  establish  itself  on  a  purely  scientific  basis,  to 
acquire  that  curious  unreality  which  inheres  in  any 
fact  that  is  strange  and  outside  our  normal  experi- 
ence of  daily  life.  There  is  much  hypnotizing  in  the 
play,  in  full  view  of  the  audience.  It  may  all  be 
quite  correct  scientifically,  though  we  are  skeptical 
on  certain  points.  For  instance,  after  the  doctor  has 
put  Becky  into  a  hypnotic  sleep,  she  still  resists  him. 
But  we  shall  not  attempt  to  set  up  as  an  expert  in 
hypnotism.  The  point  is  that  while  an  audience 
knows  very  well  people  can  be  hypnotized,  and  are 


64  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

hypnotized  every  day  by  the  doctors,  nevertheless 
it  is  something  quite  foreign  to  the  actual  experience 
of  the  audience,  and  hence  carries  very  little  emo- 
tional conviction.  The  doctor  hypnotizes  his  rival, 
and  then  tells  him  his  power  is  gone.  The  rival 
comes  to,  gets  up,  and  lo,  his  power  is  gone!  At 
least  he  says  it  is.  Somehow  we  don't  feel  a  bit 
sure  of  it.  The  whole  scene  has  the  curious  effect 
of  seeming  like  a  rather  easy  stage  trick  to  bring 
about  the  desired  ending  of  the  play.  A  little  hyp- 
notism we  can  stand  upon  the  stage,  but  three  mortal 
acts  of  it  are  too  much.  It  is  neither  frankly  magic, 
nor,  for  most  of  us,  frankly  fact.  Of  course,  it  is 
fact,  and  with  our  heads  we  know  that  it  is  fact,  or 
that  it  can  be  fact.  But  it  does  not  carry  conviction 
to  our  hearts  in  the  theatre.  That  seems  to  be  the 
real  trouble  with  "The  Case  of  Becky,"  and  not  the 
underlying  triteness  of  the  story  and  its  straining  of 
coincidence,  nor  the  acting,  either.  There  is  still 
a  mystery  in  death,  which  made  "Peter  Grimm"  a 
possible  stage  work  for  Mr.  Belasco.  In  "Becky" 
we  feel  he  has  tackled  material  which  he  cannot 
handle  by  his  pseudo-realistic  method.  If  it  were 
done  at  all,  it  would  have  to  be  done  by  a  mam 
who  cared  less  about  the  obvious  story,  and  far  more 


BELASCO  AND  HYPNOTISM          65 

about  a  real  exposition  of  medical  practice.  It  may 
be  true  that  Dr.  Jekyll  was  merely  the  victim  of 
auto-suggestion,  but  after  seeing  "The  Case  of 
Becky"  we  still  prefer  to  believe  in  the  drug. 


WHAT  BISHOPS  DO  IN  THEIR  YOUTH 

"Romance" — Maxine  Elliott  Theater,  February  /<?, 

1913 

In  many  respects  Edward  Sheldon's  new  play, 
"Romance,"  marks  a  distinct  technical  advance  over 
his  previous  work.  This  drama,  now  visible  at 
Maxine  Elliott's  Theater,  with  Miss  Doris  Keane  in 
the  leading  woman's  part,  achieves,  for  one  thing, 
a  consistent  and  unfailing  atmosphere,  or  perhaps 
it  would  be  better  to  say  mood.  It  is  keyed  to  a 
certain  emotional  note,  and  it  does  not  slump  at  any 
time  into  the  merely  sensational. 

To  be  sure,  some  of  the  players,  and  more  particu- 
larly one  player,  Mr.  William  Courtenay,  do  their 
best  to  make  it  sensational,  to  drop  it  to  quite  an- 
other level.,  But  we  must  do  the  play  the  credit  of 
laying  the  blame  in  this  case  on  the  actors.  In  the 
second  place,  Mr.  Sheldon  has  here,  it  seems  to  us,' 
come  nearer  to  consistent,  plausible,  and  really  hu- 
man characterization  than  in  any  work  he  has  so  far 

written.     By  human  characterization  we  mean  char- 

66 


BISHOPS  IN  THEIR  YOUTH         67 

acterization  felt  by  him,  not  merely  reasoned  out; 
and  so  made  more  emotionally  appealing  and  real 
to  an  audience.  We  were  never  sure  in  "Salvation 
Nell,"  for  instance,  how  much  we  should  have  cared 
about,  or  even  believed  in,  Nell,  had  any  actress  but 
Mrs.  Fiske  played  her;  and  we  felt  the  same  way 
toward  Mary  Page  of  "The  High  Road." 

They  are  real  people,  humanly  felt,  in  "Ro- 
mance," and  they  behave  according  to  their  natures. 

On  the  other  hand,  here,  as  occasionally  elsewhere, 
Mr.  Sheldon  has  been  too  careless  in  his  appropria- 
tion of  situations  in  past  dramas  to  his  own  uses. 
He  has  the  excellent  precedent  of  Homer  and  Shake- 
speare, not  to  mention  lesser  lights;  and  doubtless 
the  deed  is  more  or  less  to  be  judged  by  the  success 
with  which  the  dramatist  brings  it  off,  bends  the  old 
material  to  his  own  purposes.  We  do  not  question 
for  a  moment  Mr.  Sheldon's  success  here  in  revamp- 
ing the  atmosphere  of  Fitch's  "Captain  Jinks"  to 
the  new  drama  of  "Romance."  His  play  is  in  no 
sense  Fitch's  play.  The  woman  is  differently  stud- 
ied— and  far  more  deeply  studied.  The  whole  tone 
of  the  drama,  its  "message,"  if  we  may  hazard  the 
word,  is  different.  It  is  all  unmistakably  Sheldon. 
Yet  the  fact  remains  that  the  heroine  is  an  opera 
singer  in  the  palmy  days  of  Mapleson  and  the  old 


68  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Brevoort  House,  that  this  same  old  Brevoort  House 
furnishes  one  of  the  sets,  and  there  is  a  distinct  dupli- 
cation of  superficial  atmosphere.  Some  people  have 
complained  that  Mr.  Sheldon  used  devices  in  "The 
High  Road"  which  were  used  in  "The  Earth." 
Many  more  have  complained  of  this  duplication  of 
Fitch's  drama  in  "Romance."  It  would  pay  Mr. 
Sheldon  to  be  a  little  more  careful,  for  complaints  of 
this  sort  may  easily  become  nasty.  He  is  not  one 
that  needs  to  lean  on  anybody  for  his  inventions. 

But  to  the  story. 

"Romance"  begins  with  a  prologue  and  ends  with 
an  epilogue,  and  the  intervening  three  acts  drop 
back  forty  years  in  time,  so  that  they  come  with  the 
misty  glamour  of  a  tale  that  is  told.  The  charac- 
ters in  the  prologue  are  old  Bishop  Armstrong  and 
his  grandchildren,  Suzette  and  Harry.  Harry,  it 
seems,  is  engaged  to  an  actress.  He  and  his  sister 
break  the  news  to  the  old  man.  She  appears  to  be 
a  real  actress,  not  a  lady  from  the  chorus.  The  only 
charge  against  her  is  her  profession. 

It  is  night.  By  the  light  of  the  fire  the  old 
bishop  answers  his  impetuous  grandson's  plaint  that 
he,  the  bishop,  can  hardly  know  what  such  a  passion 
means  to  youth.  And  the  tale  that  he  begins  in 
the  fire-light  glow  is  a  tale  from  his  youth.  In  dark- 


BISHOPS  IN  THEIR  YOUTH          69 

ness  the  curtain  falls,  and  rises  soon — but  not  soon 
enough  completely  to  sustain  the  illusion — on  a 
room  in  Cornelius  Van  Tuyl's  house,  at  58  Fifth  ave- 
nue, on  a  November  evening  forty  years  ago. 

That  is  where  the  real  play  begins — the  bishop's 
story  to  his  grandson  is  enacted  before  our  eyes. 

We  find  the  bishop  the  ardent  young  rector  of 
St.  Giles'.  Mr.  Van  Tuyl,  who  is  giving  a  ball,  is 
his  leading  vestryman.  We  are  in  the  polite  society 
of  the  seventies,  which  George  William  Curtis  poked 
amiable  fun  at.  A  great  Italian  singer  is  to  come 
to  the  ball  that  night,  Mme.  Cavallini.  There  has 
been  much  talk  of  her  past,  some  of  which  the  rector 
hears.  He  is  shocked — and  piqued. 

She  comes.  But  when  the  rector  meets  her  he 
does  not  know  who  she  is,  and  she  has  fun  with  him ; 
he  is  a  strange  type  to  her,  this  innocent  Puritan, 
and  she  to  him.  But  through  the  scene  of  gay  ban- 
ter on  her  part  and  bewilderment  on  his  is  apparent 
a  rising  mutual  attraction.  The  rector  does  not 
learn  who  his  charmer  is  till  later,  when  a  voice  in 
the  room  below  arrests  him,  and  looking  over  the 
rail  he  beholds  this  same  woman  singing  "Know'st 
Thou  the  Land?"  from  "Mignon" — the  air  the 
bishop's  granddaughter  in  the  prologue  had  wished 
to  put  into  the  victrola,  "as  sung  by  Geraldine  Far- 


70 

rar."  The  old  air  comes  up  the  stairs,  from  the 
imagined  glow  of  the  ballroom  below;  the  rector 
stands  gazing,  his  heart  entangled  in  romance;  and 
the  first  curtain  falls. 

The  next  act  is  laid  in  the  rector's  study,  and  we 
learn  what  his  aunt  thinks  of  his  "carryings-on"  with 
this  opera  singer,  we  see  him  make  love  to  her,  pro- 
pose marriage,  we  realize  that  she  loves  him,  and 
then  the  act  tightens  into  sterner  drama  when  to  the 
rector  comes  the  inevitable  revelation  which  we,  in 
the  audience,  have  been  expecting — namely,  that 
Cavallini  has  been  the  mistress  of  Van  Tuyl.  Poor 
little  creature,  taken  up  early  into  a  strange  and  dan- 
gerous life  by  the  gift  of  her  voice,  out  of  a  life 
perhaps  more  strange  and  dangerous  still,  her  love 
for  the  rector  is  the  best  thing  she  has  ever  known. 
To  tell  him  of  her  past  shame  is  the  bravest  thing 
she  ever  did.  Our  sympathy  goes  out  to  both  of 
them. 

The  last  act  is  the  evening  of  the  same  day. 
Cavallini  has  sung  her  farewell  performance  and  is 
being  brought  back  to  the  Brevoort  House  in  a  coach 
drawn  by  admirers,  to  a  room  full  of  flowers.  But 
she  is  sad  of  heart;  her  gayety  is  gone.  Comes  sud- 
denly the  rector,  evidently  fired  by  a  mad,  evangeli- 
cal passion  to  save  her  soul.  There  is  a  stormy 


BISHOPS  IN  THEIR  YOUTH          71 

scene,  ending  in  the  rector's  change  of  purpose,  fired 
by  jealousy  and  desire,  to  an  equally  mad  passion 
to  run  off  with  her  at  once.  But  her  love  for  this 
good  man  has  done  its  work.  Cavallini  repels  him. 
With  a  fine,  pathetic  dignity,  she  tells  him  that  to  re- 
fuse him  is  the  best  atonement  she  can  make.  He 
goes  out  humbled,  never  to  see  her  again.  She,  like 
the  queen,  goes  away  "to  sin  no  more." 

Then  once  more  we  see  the  bishop  sitting  before 
the  fire,  and  his  grandson  rising,  now  the  tale  is  told. 
He  pats  his  grandfather  affectionately  on  the  back. 
Where  is  he  going*?  He  is  going  to  the  theatre  to 
get  his  heart's  desire.  They  are  not  going  to  wait 
any  longer! 

The  old  man  smiles.     It  is  Youth ! 

Possibly  for  some  people  the  fact  that  there  seems 
to  be  no  particular  moral  analogy  between  the  bish- 
op's story  and  his  grandson's  affair  will  weaken  the 
coherence  of  the  whole  drama.  But  the  grandson 
is  a  nice  boy,  and  we  prefer  it  as  it  is.  Certainly  the 
main  story  has  coherence,  charm,  force  and  a  real 
touch  of  romantic  glamour,  and  it  provides  a  very 
fine  acting  part  for  Miss  Doris  Keane. 

Cavallini  is  wayward,  capricious,  alternate  smiles 
and  moodiness,  bright  and  alluring,  full  of  gay  fun, 
and  full,  too,  of  the  sadness  which  comes  from  our 


72  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

reflection  on  her  pathetically  predestined  past.  She 
is  a  child  of  the  streets  and  the  opera,  with  all  the 
glamour  and  the  strangeness  of  the  great  artist  who 
rises  from  such  obscurity  through  such  devious,  un- 
known ways.  So  Miss  Keane  plays  her,  with  a  be- 
witching accent,  with  infectious  fun,  with  delicious 
capriciousness,  with  true  tenderness,  too.  It  is  only 
when  the  last  act  is  reached,  and  Cavallini  rises  to 
the  pathetic  dignity  of  redemption  and  renunciation 
that  Miss  Keane  falls  short  of  the  mark.  Here  the 
note  is  beyond  her.  Here  Mr.  Sheldon  is  writing 
for  Mrs.  Fiske's  capacities,  perhaps  unconsciously, 
not  for  Miss  Keane's.  But  it  must  also  be  confessed 
that  Miss  Keane  receives  too  little  aid  from  William 
Courtenay,  as  the  rector. 

Mr.  Courtenay,  of  course,  plays  first  the  bishop  in 
the  prologue.  Here  the  modern  training  (or  better 
the  lack  of  training)  of  our  actors  is  painfully  ap- 
parent. Dressed  up  as  an  old  man,  Mr.  Courtenay, 
who  has  so  long  "played  himself,"  is  lost.  His 
speech  becomes  stilted.  He  talks  in  a  kind  of  sing- 
song. He  has  no  more  of  a  mellow  old  bishop's 
dignity  and  sweetness  than  the  chair  he  sits  in.  To 
be  sure,  the  part  is  hardly  written  with  the  mellow- 
ness an  older  playwright  could  have  given  it,  such 
mellowness  as  Mr.  Thomas  gave  to  his  two  judges 


BISHOPS  IN  THEIR  YOUTH          73 

in  "The  Witching  Hour."  But  Mr.  Courtenay  does 
not  help.  The  prologue  falls  short  of  its  possible 
effect. 

As  the  rector,  Mr.  Courtenay  is  more  on  his  own 
ground — for  a  time,  at  least.  He  escapes  a  too  easy 
priggishness,  and  so  long  as  Mr.  Sheldon  gives  him 
no  speeches  which  rise  above  an  ordinary  conversa- 
tional diction  he  talks  quite  naturally.  When,  how- 
ever, the  language  is  heightened  to  meet  a  mood  (and 
the  author  is  striving  with  each  new  play  for  a 
richer  speech,  and  succeeding  here,  certainly,  more 
than  in  "The  High  Road"  in  escaping  the  pitfalls 
of  mere  rhetoric)  Mr.  Courtenay  becomes  once  more 
sing-song  and  artificial. 

His  worst  failure,  however,  is  in  the  third  act. 
Here  he  simply  lets  go  of  the  character  altogether, 
and  rants  all  over  the  Hotel  Brevoort.  He  becomes 
first  a  Sam  Jones  in  his  effort  to  save  Cavallini's  soul, 
and  then  a  Caliban  in  his  passion  for  her  body.  We 
cannot  think  that  Mr.  Sheldon  intended  anything  so 
raw.  Certainly  the  scene  could  be  played  in  char- 
acter and  in  keeping  with  the  romantic  dignity  and 
charm  of  the  rest  of  the  play.  We  lose  altogether 
in  such  playing  the  spiritual  note  on  which  the  story 
proper  should  end. 

In  striking  contrast  to  Mr.  Courtenay's  undis- 


74  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

ciplined  exhibition  is  the  acting  of  A.  E.  Anson  as 
Van  Tuyl,  a  gem  of  a  performance  that  actually 
persuades  us  for  the  time  into  accepting  this  fine 
gentleman,  this  pillar  of  St.  Giles',  at  his  face  value, 
and  attributing  his  past  relations  with  Cavallini  to 
that  same  extenuating  glamour  of  romance  which 
all  of  us  in  our  heart  of  hearts  look  upon  with  sym- 
pathy. Yes,  we  make  the  confession  boldly — not 
the  confession,  the  charge!  Mr.  Anson's  complete 
command  of  the  resources  of  his  art  is  a  treat  to 
all  lovers  of  acting,  and  his  suave  ease  upon  the  stage 
a  thing  to  be  copied  by  many  a  player. 

It  only  remains  to  add  that  George  Foster  Platt 
has  staged  "Romance"  with  his  usual  skill  in  sur- 
face illusion,  and  given  us  that  gratifying  sense  of 
every  smallest  thing  done  right. 


ADVENTURES  OF  A  SOUL  AT  THE 
WINTER  GARDEN 

"The  Honeymoon  Express" — Winter  Garden^ 
February  6,  1913 

If  we  accept  Anatole  France's  definition  of  criti- 
cism as  "the  adventures  of  a  soul  among  master- 
pieces," how  is  one  to  write  criticism  about  a  new 
production  at  the  Winter  Garden1?  Henry  W.  Sav- 
age has  been  having  a  fine  time  recently  jumping 
upon  the  critics.  He  complains  that  some  of  them 
exploit  themselves  rather  than  the  play  they  are 
writing  about.  Yet  occasionally  that  is  not  only  the 
inevitable,  but  the  kindest  proceeding.  When  you 
send  your  soul  adventuring,  not  among  masterpieces, 
but  inanities,  you  prefer  to  talk  about  the  protective 
tariff  or  Bergson's  metaphysical  theories,  or  even 
your  own,  rather  than  to  discuss  the  experiences 
through  which  you  have  just  passed. 

Walter  Pater  saw  the  Mona  Lisa — how  fortunate 
he  lived  before  that  lady  was  stolen ! — and  his  soul's 
adventure  was  recorded  in  one  of  the  most  languidly 

75 


76  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

lovely  passages  in  all  the  glorious  procession  of  Eng- 
lish prose.  But  it  is  doubtful  if  even  Pater  could 
have  created  criticism  which  was  also  literature  had 
he  been  seeing  a  chromo-lithograph  on  a  soap  calen- 
dar. Yet  even  your  poor  overworked  newspaper 
dramatic  critic  wants  to  write  something  as  near 
literature  as  his  powers  will  permit,  and  he  longs 
with  a  more  selfish  passion,  perhaps,  but  hardly  a 
less  intense,  than  that  of  the  Drama  Leaguers,  for 
masterpieces.  He  has  a  soul — yes,  even  the  dra- 
matic critic  has  a  soul ;  and  when  it  can  go  adventur- 
ing, whether  at  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  or  "Pinafore," 
whether  at  "She  Stoops  to  Conquer"  or  "Hindle 
Wakes,"  the  critic  then  has  the  materials  out  of 
which  he  can  himself  create  something  which  by  the 
grace  of  God  may  be  not  unworthy  of  print. 

But  when  the  critic  has  to  check  his  soul  in  the 
cloakroom  and  goes  in  to  see  not  a  masterpiece  but 
an  inanity,  he  has  no  materials  of  adventure  to  work 
with  and  if  he  then  comes  away  and  tries  to  make 
bricks  without  straw,  tries  to  create  something  at 
least  readable  by  Charles  Lamb's  method  of  chat- 
ting about  himself,  of  causerie,  after  all  he  is  not  so 
much  to  be  blamed.  It  is  sometimes  not  vanity  but 
literary  idealism  which  drives  him  to  it. 

If  he  himself,  besides,  were  not  more  worth  writ- 


ADVENTURES  OF  A  SOUL  77 

ing  about  than  many  of  the  "shows"  he  witnesses,  he 
would  be  totally  unfitted  for  the  post  of  critic. 
You  can  hardly  expect  him  to  be  so  modest  as  not  to 
know  that. 

All  of  which  is  by  way  of  informing  the  perspica- 
cious reader  that  we  found  Gaby  Deslys  in  "The 
Honeymoon  Express"  at  the  Winter  Garden  in  New 
York  a  most  desolate  and  deplorable  form  of  enter- 
tainment, in  which  view  some  thousands  of  well- 
fed  and  over-dressed  Broadwayites  of  both  sexes 
do  not  in  the  least  concur. 

For  the  opening  night,  speculators — who  have  been 
abolished  in  New  York,  by  the  way — were  asking, 
and  getting,  as  high  as  $6.00  a  seat.  We  had 
planned  to  go  and  see  "Joseph  and  His  Brethren," 
but  we  could  not  resist  our  impulse  to  see  why  peo- 
ple would  give  up  six  good  dollars  to  watch  and 
listen  to  Gaby  Deslys. 

Nor  do  we  know  any  better  now. 

The  great  auditorium  of  the  Winter  Garden,  a 
converted  horse  exchange,  was  crowded  to  the  doors 
with  men,  women  and  tobacco  smoke.  People  even 
stood  six  deep  at  the  rear.  It  was  not  the  kind  of 
an  audience  you  see  at  "Peter  Pan."  It  was  a  very 
sophisticated  audience.  It  had  on  its  best  clothes. 
Some  of  the  feminine  head-dresses  were  remarkable. 


78  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Indeed,  when  the  wearers  had  taken  their  seats,  most 
of  their  dressing  seemed  to  be  on  their  heads.  There 
was  expectancy  as  well  as  cigar  smoke  in  the  air. 
Something  was  going  to  be  doing,  without  doubt. 

The  something  turned  out  to  be  "The  Honey- 
moon Express,"  described  as  "a  spectacular  farce 
with  music,  in  two  acts  and  six  scenes."  We  de- 
tected some  farce,  but  a  patient  wait  of  nearly  three 
hours  failed  to  disclose  any  music,  though  a  large 
orchestra  was  industriously  at  work  most  of  the 
time  manufacturing  syncopated  sounds.  Melville 
Ellis  played  the  piano,  and  numerous  people  fre- 
quently opened  their  mouths  and  emitted  strange 
noises. 

The  whole  affair  was  staged  by  Ned  Wayburn. 
As  a  result,  nobody  stood  still  for  a  second.  The 
choruses  rushed  back  and  forth  in  time  to  the  syn- 
copated noises,  waved  their  arms,  skipped,  made 
lines  across  the  stage,  and  went  off  each  with  her 
hands  on  the  hips  of  the  girl  in  front,  kicking  up  the 
leg  toward  the  audience.  The  principals  shouted 
and  rushed  about.  The  din  and  the  meaningless 
movement  were  incessant,  till  the  brain  was  beaten 
into  a  kind  of  quiescent  stupor. 

And  through  it  all  Gaby  glided  in  about  twelve 
remarkable  gowns  and  one  perfectly  good  set  of  em- 


ADVENTURES  OF  A  SOUL  79 

broidered  French  underwear.  Every  time  she  en- 
tered the  stage  she  wore  a  new  dress,  and  in  the 
second  act  she  took  her  dress  off  and  put  on  a  night- 
gown. Occasionally  she  essayed  to  sing,  and  fre- 
quently she  danced  in  a  kind  of  wild,  clumsy  aban- 
don. Then  there  was  a  -black-faced  comedian 
named  Al  Jolson  who  interrupted  the  proceedings 
at  periodic  intervals  to  regale  the  audience  with 
somewhat  dubious  witticisms  and  strange  songs  sup- 
posed on  Broadway  to  be  negro.  Through  the  hub- 
bub a  brave  little  plot  struggled  for  existence,  and 
won  admiration  more  for  its  courage  than  its  re- 
finement. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  best  efforts  of  the  industrious 
Gaby,  in  spite  of  Al  Jolson's  reputation  and  Mel- 
ville Ellis's  costumes,  in  spite  of  the  "augmented  or- 
chestra" and  the  ragtime  of  Jean  Schwartz,  the  final 
glory  went  to  the  scenery  and  the  electrician,  aided, 
of  course,  by  the  brave  little  plot. 

Gaby's  husband  was  off  to  Paris  to  get  a  divorce. 
Gaby  missed  the  train.  A  motor  was  called  into 
service  that  she  might  catch  another  train,  the  Hon- 
eymoon Express,  at  Rouen  Junction,  sixty  miles 
away,  and  forestall  his  action.  Moving  pictures  of 
the  real  players,  in  a  real  motor,  were  first  thrown 
on  the  screen,  to  show  the  start  for  Rouen,  up  Pel- 


8o  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

ham  Parkway,  the  Bronx,  New  York.  Then  the 
curtain  rose  on  Rouen  Junction,  with  the  Matter- 
horn  and  Mont  Blanc  on  the  back  drop.  The  stage 
was  nearly  dark,  the  mountains  dim. 

Suddenly  we  saw  the  lights  of  the  train  crawling, 
winding,  down  the  mountains,  like  a  golden  cater- 
pillar. A  moment,  and  the  tiny  headlights  of  a 
motor  appeared.  It  was  a  race  between  them!  A 
race  on  the  scenery!  The  audience  bubbled  with 
delight.  The  lights  of  the  train  grew  larger  and 
nearer,  the  lights  of  the  motor  larger  and  farther 
spaced.  Finally  the  stage  was  darkened  completely, 
we  heard  the  train,  we  heard  the  motor.  The  engine 
headlight  streamed  out  into  the  auditorium;  so  did 
the  twin  lamps  of  the  motor,  growing  larger  rapidly, 
and  wider  apart.  With  a  cough  and  a  roar,  a  real 
motor  dashed  upon  the  stage  out  of  the  dark,  side  by 
side  with  a  big  locomotive,  not  so  real.  Out  leapt 
Gaby — just  in  time.  The  whole  race  was  con- 
ducted with  great  mechanical  ingenuity  and  was 
greeted  with  cheers. 

Then  the  electrician  went  cheerfully  home. 
Gaby  put  on  a  new  dress,  and  the  "augmented  or- 
chestra" once  more  went  at  their  sweaty  task  of 
sawing  ragtime. 

Now,  if  Colonel  Savage  had  produced  this  con- 


ADVENTURES  OF  A  SOUL  81 

traption  (which,  by  the  way,  he  would  never  have 
done),  he  would  doubtless  object  in  his  tactful  way 
to  this  alleged  criticism  of  it,  as  being  quite  unfair. 
If  we  were  fair  according  to  managerial  standards, 
we  should  say  that  a  huge  audience  enjoyed  it,  that 
it  is  likely  to  have  a  long  run,  that  the  gorgeous  cos- 
tumes cost  a  heap  of  money,  that  Al  Jolson  elicited 
roars  of  laughter,  and  so  forth,  ad  nauseam. 

But,  if  we  may  be  permitted  to  say  so,  we  are 
not  concerned  with  the  length  of  its  run,  nor  with  the 
cost  of  its  costumes,  nor  with  the  attitude  toward  it 
of  the  kind  of  people  who  like  that  kind  of  thing. 
We  are  not  concerned  with  anybody's  attitude  to- 
ward it  save  our  own.  There  was  a  time,  perhaps, 
in  our  hopeful  youth,  when  we  thought  that  it  was 
our  duty  to  make  other  people  feel  as  we  did,  and 
even  held  them  in  some  contempt  if  they  didn't. 
But  that  time  has  passed.  We  have  grown  weary 
of  effort  and  weary  of  contempt.  If  anybody  likes 
"The  Honeymoon  Express,"  finding  it  amusing  and 
stimulating,  why,  we  rejoice  now  that  it  exists  for 
him  to  see  and  hear. 

But  we  still  reserve  the  inalienable  right  to  state 
that  we  personally  got  nothing  out  of  it  except  a 
headache. 


HOLDING  THE  MIRROR  UP  TO  ART 

"The  Show  Shop"— Hudson  Theater, 
December  75,  1914 

"The  Show  Shop,"  by  James  Forbes,  author  of 
"The  Chorus  Lady,"  "The  Traveling  Salesman"  and 
other  comedies,  has  been  produced  at  the  Hudson 
Theatre,  where*  for  many  years  Mr.  Forbes  was  the 
press  agent,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  report  that  it  is 
not  only  the  best  play  Mr.  Forbes  has  yet  written, 
but  one  of  the  cleverest,  brightest,  most  satisfying 
plays  displayed  on  Broadway  this  season.  In  fact, 
it  is  so  good  that  it  almost  restores  a  lagging  faith 
in  the  American  theatre.  It  is  acted  as  well  as  it  is 
written,  and  the  whole  production  might  come  from 
Vienna  without  a  blush. 

"The  Show  Shop"  is  somewhat  difficult  to  classify. 
It  constantly  skates  the  line  between  satiric  comedy 
and  burlesque,  never  in  its  burlesque  losing  sight, 
however,  of  its  legitimate  story,  yet  never  in  the 
telling  of  that  story  forgetting  its  burlesque  purpose. 

At  once  too  kindly  and  too  farcical  to  be  called  an 

82 


HOLDING  THE  MIRROR  UP  TO  ART      83 

out-and-out  satire  of  theatrical  life,  it  constantly 
pokes  such  delicious  fun  at  this  life  that  it  cannot 
be  classed  with  Pinero's  "Trelawney  of  the  Wells," 
where  a  romantic  element  after  all  prevailed. 
Moreover,  "The  Show  Shop"  is  complicated  by  a 
novel  act  containing  a  play  within  the  play,  cleverly 
woven  into  the  story.  In  Mr.  Forbes'  other  come- 
dies he  has  tried  to  pass  from  the  comic  to  the  serious 
(as  in  "The  Chorus  Lady")  and  achieved  only  crude 
sentimentality.  His  transitions  were  like  those  of 
a  poor  singer  from  one  register  to  another.  But  in 
this  latest  work  he  has  tried  for  no  changes  of  mood, 
cutting  his  work  all  of  a  piece,  writing  it  all  in  the 
same  spirit  of  kindly  burlesque,  and  the  result  is 
happy  artistic  unity.  For  once  we  have  an  Ameri- 
can play,  so  American  that  it  would  almost  call  for 
a  glossary,  which  we  could  yet  show  to  a  cultivated 
European  without  a  single  blush  of  apology. 

The  first  act  is  laid  in  a  theatrical  manager's  office 
in  New  York,  the  second  act  in  a  cheap  hotel  on  the 
road  (in  Punxatawney),  the  third  act  on  the  stage 
of  a  New  York  theater  and  the  last  act  in  the  rooms 
of  the  hero.  The  hero  is  the  only  person  in  the  play 
who  isn't  professionally  connected  with  the  theatri- 
cal game,  and  he  is  dragged  into  it  in  Act  I.  He 
is  a  rich  young  fellow,  dreadfully  in  love  with  Bet- 


84  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

tina  Dean,  who  is  a  sweet  little  actress  with  a  really- 
truly  mother,  who  also  was  an  actress  once,  and 
who  won't  let  Bettina  marry  Jerome  Belden  (the 
hero)  till  her  child  has  made  her  debut  on  Broad- 
way and  had  a  fling  at  a  "career."  Max  Rosen- 
baum,  the  manager,  is  about  to  send  Bettina  out  in 
a  play  called  "The  Punch,"  and  Jerome,  in  order 
to  be  near  her,  signs  up  to  play  the  part  of  a  youth 
about  town.  Of  course,  he  knows  nothing  about 
acting,  but  he  "looks  the  part,"  he  is  the  "type,"  so 
the  manager  engages  him  at  once.  In  the  second 
act  we  see  the  manager  and  his  company  on  the  road, 
after  the  play  has  failed,  the  manager  telling  these 
footlight  children  in  words  that  are  said  to  be  remi- 
niscent of  a  certain  Broadway  dramatic  Napoleon, 
the  sad  news.  Of  course,  Jerome  is  much  cut  up, 
because  if  the  play  doesn't  come  into  New  York  his 
chance  of  marrying  Bettina  is  just  so  much  longer 
put  off.  Therefore  he  suggests  to  Max  that  he  will 
put  up  the  money  for  a  new  production,  and  further 
guarantee  Max  $5,000  if  the  play  fails,  which  is, 
of  course,  what  he  wants  it  to  do. 

"I  don't  believe  I  could  pick  a  failure,"  says  the 
manager. 

But  Jerome,  the  amateur,  is  confident  that  he  can, 
so  he  puts  a  dozen  mss.  on  the  table,  shuts  his  eyes 


HOLDING  THE  MIRROR  UP  TO  ART     85 

and  counts  them  out,  eeny,  meeny,  miny,  mo.  The 
ms.  called  "A  Drop  of  Poison"  is  "it."  Mother 
Dean,  when  she  hears  that  Max  is  to  star  her  daugh- 
ter in  it  (of  course,  she  doesn't  know  of  the  real 
plan),  promptly  changes  the  name  to  "Dora's  Di- 
lemma," because  she  says  the  name  of  the  star  char- 
acter should  always  appear  in  the  title. 

The  girl,  however,  positively  refuses  to  act  in  the 
play  unless  Jerome  is  her  leading  man.  She  will 
not  make  love  to  anybody  else,  even  on  the  stage, 
so  poor  Jerome,  who  has  had  all  the  acting  he  wants, 
is  forced  into  this  job. 

The  third  act  shows  first  the  dress  rehearsal  of 
"Dora's  Dilemma,"  of  the  big  climax,  where  Jerome 
is  supposed  to  have  a  fight  in  the  dark  with  a  police- 
man, with  incriminating  papers  in  his  pocket.  He 
is  supposed  to  take  his  coat  off,  however,  so  the 
heroine  can  get  the  papers,  and  when  the  lights  are 
switched  on  she  holds  the  papers  in  her  hand  and 
cries,  "I  am  the  thief."  This  rehearsal  is  one  long 
scream  for  the  audience,  even  for  persons  who  have 
never  seen  a  real  rehearsal.  Douglas  Fairbanks, 
who  plays  the  hero,  is  of  course  supposed  to  act  very 
badly,  and  he  does,  to  the  queen's  taste.  The 
poor  author  figures  chiefly  by  moaning  and  wailing, 
as  his  play  is  slaughtered.  The  stage  manager 


86  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

fumes.  Mother  Dean  interferes.  Max,  the  little 
Jew  manager,  acts  the  diplomat.  All  the  players 
exhibit  vanities,  and  the  chaos  of  the  whole  affair 
is  very  comically  rendered.  Perhaps  the  best  com- 
edy of  all  is  the  rehearsal  of  the  curtain  calls.  Then 
the  curtain  falls  for  a  moment,  and  rises  again  to 
show  the  actual  performance  that  night. 

For  this  scene  Max  sits  in  a  real  box  in  the  actual 
theater,  with  Mother  Dean.  All  goes  well  till  the 
hero  enters.  Then  he  forgets  everything,  forgets  to 
take  his  coat  off,  has  the  fight  in  the  dark,  and  when 
the  lights  come  on,  lo,  the  poor  heroine  has  no  papers 
to  hold  up,  the  play  is  ruined !  No,  for  Jerome  has 
an  inspiration !  He  climbs  up  over  the  desk,  he  falls 
on  the  policeman,  he  really  knocks  him  down,  he 
bowls  out  the  other  characters,  none  of  whom  has 
been  rehearsed  for  this  impromptu  climax,  he  seizes 
the  heroine  in  his  arms,  and  exits  with  her  through 
the  window,  amid  the  applause  of  the  astonished 
audience. 

The  last  act  takes  place  the  next  morning.  Bet- 
tina  comes  to  Jerome's  rooms,  weeping.  Hasn't  he 
seen  the  papers'?  The  play  is  a  hit!  The  unex- 
pected climax  is  praised.  Jerome  is  praised  for  his 
unconventional  acting,  his  freedom  from  the  usual 
routine  technique. 


HOLDING  THE  MIRROR  UP  TO  ART     87 

"What  is  technique?"  the  bewildered  youth  asks. 

"Technique,"  replies  the  actress,  "is  something 
you  work  all  your  life  to  get,  and  the  public  doesn't 
want." 

At  first  Bettina  and  Jerome  refuse  to  go  on  with 
the  play,  insisting  that  they  are  going  to  get  mar- 
ried at  once.  Of  course,  Max  has  a  terrible  mo- 
ment at  this  threat.  They  mustn't  marry — the 
public  wouldn't  come  to  see  either  of  them  then! 
They  must  not  stop  playing,  either,  because  then 
all  the  company  would  be  out  of  work.  The 
thought  of  the  really  nice  people  in  the  company  de- 
cides Jerome.  He  will  go  on  with  the  agony  the 
season  out — and  then  for  Europe  or  a  farm.  But 
he  insists  on  a  secret  wedding,  none  the  less,  and  im- 
mediately. He  and  Bettina  are  leaving  for  the 
Little  Church  Around  the  Corner  as  the  curtain  falls. 

This  bare  outline  will  show  the  satirical  scheme  of 
the  play,  the  clever  burlesque  of  the  hit-and-miss 
of  theatrical  production.  It  can  not,  however,  even 
suggest  the  constant  snap  and  sparkle  of  the  shop 
slang;  the  keen  bits  of  character  observation;  the 
amiable  fun  poked  at  managers,  actors,  authors  and 
even  audiences.  For  once  an  author  has  had  a  first 
rate  idea,  and  clothed  it  in  first  rate  garments  of 
dialogue  and  character.  It  is  acted,  too,  in  the  same 


88  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

spirit.  Douglas  Fairbanks  is  the  "star,"  on  the 
program,  but  in  reality  he  is  merely  one  of  a  well 
balanced  company.  From  Miss  Edna  Aug,  who 
gives  a  delicious  performance  as  the  manager's  fresh 
stenographer  in  Act  I,  to  William  Sampson,  who 
plays  an  old-time  actor  in  love  with  his  old-time 
wife,  played  by  Olive  May,  every  player  is  capital. 
It  is,  to  be  sure,  a  play  of  character  parts,  and  such 
parts  can  always  be  better  filled  in  America  than 
"straight"  parts.  One  of  the  very  best  perform- 
ances is  given  by  an  actor  named  George  Sidney. 
We  are  told  that  for  years  he  has  played  nothing 
but  Jew  character  roles  in  such  cheap  burlesques  as 
"Busy  Izzy,"  but  here,  as  the  little  Jew  manager, 
there  is  nothing  to  suggest  such  a  bad  training.  He 
looks  exactly  like  a  composite  picture  of  Abe  Er- 
langer  and  Charles  Frohman,  and  he  acts  with  a 
quiet  skill  and  an  unforced  feeling  for  comedy  which 
is  a  delight.  The  part  does  not  call  for  any  of  Mr. 
Erlanger's  prize  fighter  moods,  but  does  call  for 
much  of  Mr.  Frohman's  sweet  kindliness.  An  ig- 
norant little  vulgarian,  with  a  good  heart  and  the 
soul  of  a  gambler — that  is  Max,  and  that  is  how 
Mr.  Sidney  plays  him.  Ned  Sparks,  also,  as  the 
lank,  weary,  nasal  stage  manager,  is  marvelously  true 
to  life.  Play  and  performance  are  alike  capital, 


HOLDING  THE  MIRROR  UP  TO  ART     89 

both  jolly  entertainment  and,  beneath  the  fooling, 
good-natured  but  really  keen  and  intelligent  satire. 
You  don't  have  to  check  either  your  brains  or  your 
taste  in  the  coatroom  when  you  go  to  see  "The  Show 
Shop." 


MR.  COHAN'S  BELIEF  IN  MIRACLES 

"The  Miracle  Man" — Astor  Theater^ 
September  21^  1914 

George  Cohan  has  dramatized  a  book  by  Frank 
L.  Packard,  called  "The  Miracle  Man,"  and  by  so 
doing  he  has,  as  it  were,  thrown  down  the  gauntlet 
to  more  serious  criticism.  He  has  endeavored  to 
write  a  play  of  spiritual  forces,  a  drama  in  which 
the  protagonist  is  Faith.  No  doubt  he  has  also  sup- 
plied the  hope,  and  trusts  to  his  audiences  for  the 
charity.  But,  truth  to  tell,  Mr.  Cohan  is  over  his 
depth.  We  have  not  read  the  book  from  which  his 
play  takes  its  theme  and  title,  but  we  shrewdly  sus- 
pect that  the  author  of  that  book  was  over  his  depth 
also. 

The  play  is  not  the  first  attempt  to  make  a  drama 
out  of  the  phenomena  of  faith  healing.  A  similar 
attempt  was  made  by  the  late  William  Vaughn 
Moody,  and  Henry  Miller  endeavored  to  persuade 
Forbes  Robertson  to  act  "The  Faith  Healer,"  Mr. 
Moody's  drama.  Failing  that,  Mr.  Miller  himself 
acted  it  for  a  single  performance  at  Harvard  Uni- 

90 


MR.  COHAN'S  BELIEF  IN  MIRACLES     91 

versity.  "The  Faith  Healer"  was  the  work  of  a 
poet,  and  of  a  man  who  thought  deeply  and  felt 
profoundly.  Yet  it  was  not  successful  on  the  stage. 
Not  long  before,  Henry  Arthur  Jones  had  produced 
a  play  called  "The  Evangelist,"  which  was  not,  to 
be  sure,  a  drama  of  faith  healing,  but  which  de- 
pended upon  the  analogous  phenomenon  of  conver- 
sion— which  is  faith  healing  of  the  spirit  instead  of 
the  body.  That  play  also  failed. 

Into  the  probable  reasons  for  such  failures  there 
is  scarcely  time  nor  space  to  go  now.  It  is  sufficient 
to  say  that  the  phenomena  depicted,  especially  the 
phenomenon  of  bodily  healing,  lie  so  far  beyond  the 
experience  of  the  ordinary  person  today  that  they 
can  with  difficulty  carry  emotional  conviction.  In 
a  credulous  age  faith  healing  might  have  been  as 
readily  accepted  by  every  one  as  witchcraft  was  in 
Salem,  or  ghosts  in  Shakespeare.  But  not  so  today. 
In  most  alleged  cases  now  you  and  I  instinctively 
feel  that  an  element  of  fraud  probably  enters;  and 
in  all  cases  where  a  genuine  cure  appears  to  have 
been  effected  we  demand  an  inquiry  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  disease,  whether  functional  or  organic,  and 
we  are  led  from  our  contemplation  not  to  blind 
"faith"  but  rather  into  a  still  more  curious  and 
scientific  investigation  of  the  mysterious  connection 


92  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

between  the  brain  and  the  rest  of  the  body. 
"Miracles"  once  built  shrines.  Now  they  build 
psychotherapic  laboratories.  Even  in  the  case  of 
"conversion,"  what  was  once  a  common  experience 
of  nearly  every  Protestant  believer  is  now  to  a  very 
great  extent  something  we  must  go  to  the  Salvation 
Army  rescue  missions  to  observe  first  hand. 

But  these  considerations  have  not  troubled  Mr. 
Cohan,  or  not  enough  to  deter  him  from  his  attempt 
to  make  a  play  out  of  "The  Miracle  Man."  We 
are  glad  that  they  didn't,  for  the  main  idea  of  the 
story  and,  of  course,  of  the  play,  is  a  striking  one; 
and  because  Mr.  Cohan  has  far  too  much  good  sense 
and  theatrical  taste  not  to  handle  it  seriously  the 
public  has  a  chance  to  see  him  in  a  new  role.  If 
the  play  enjoys  a  moderate  degree  of  prosperity — 
and  that  seems  probable — Cohan's  place  as  a  man 
of  serious  ambitions  will  be  more  firmly  fixed,  and 
it  will  be  easier  for  him  to  make  his  next  advance 
forward.  Moreover,  every  time  he  handles  a  theme 
with  spiritual  values  in  it  he  unquestionably  must 
react  to  these  values,  for  he  is  an  Irishman.  He 
must  broaden  his  personal  outlook.  We  are  glad 
he  had  the  courage  to  step  over  his  head  into  this 
deep  water. 

Here  is  the  scheme  of  "The  Miracle  Man."     An 


MR.  COHAN'S  BELIEF  IN  MIRACLES     93 

old  fellow  called  the  patriarch  lives  in  a  small  Maine 
village,  and  effects  cures,  or  so  the  whole  village 
believes.  A  sharper  from  New  York  sees  in  him  a 
chance  to  make  money.  Though  the  patriarch  will 
take  no  fees,  he  would  take  money  for  the  sake  of 
his  grand-niece,  his  only  relative,  if  she  could  be 
found.  The  sharper  pretends  himself  to  be  cured 
of  his  "vocal  troubles."  Next  he  steals  enough  evi- 
dence to  palm  off  his  "queen"  successfully  as  the  old 
man's  lost  niece.  Next  he  brings  up  two  other 
crooks  from  New  York,  one  a  professional  "flopper," 
who  pretends  to  be  a  cripple,  and  the  other  a  "dope 
fiend,"  who  pretends  a  terrible  cough.  The  scheme 
is  to  have  these  cases  cured,  to  publish  the  fact  to  the 
world,  and  then  to  fatten  on  the  fees  which  will 
come  in,  for  the  old  man  will  turn  all  the  money 
over  to  his  "niece." 

All  goes  well  for  a  time,  but  the  sharper  reckoned 
without  the  old  man's  genuine  power.  Gradually 
the  girl  falls  under  the  spell  of  his  benignity,  the 
dope  fiend  falls  in  love  with  a  country  girl  in  an 
honest  way,  and  finally,  when  the  flopper  is  cured  of 
his  pretended  malady,  a  small  boy,  who  is  a  real 
cripple,  is  cured  also,  and  even  the  flopper  collapses 
at  this.  With  his  two  male  pals  converted  into  hon- 
est citizens,  and  his  "queen"  on  the  verge,  the  sharper 


94  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

is  hard  put  to  hold  his  own.  Finally  the  girl  re- 
fuses point  blank  to  have  anything  more  to  do  with 
him  unless  he  reforms  also,  and  between  her  atti- 
tude and  the  death  of  the  patriarch  even  he  is  finally 
converted,  and  the  last  curtain  falls  on  a  picture  of 
wholesale  regeneration. 

It  is,  assuredly,  a  pretty  big  pill  to  swallow,  this 
story.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  hard  to  fancy  these  im- 
postors being  able  to  carry  off  their  bluff,  especially 
in  the  case  of  the  girl.  A  crook's  mistress  is  usually 
not  the  sort  who  can  go  into  a  rural  community  and 
successfully  pose  as  a  pattern  of  virginal  sweetness 
and  modesty.  Mr.  Cohan  here,  as  usual,  oddly 
underestimates  the  intelligence  of  all  those  be- 
nighted souls  who  do  not  dwell  on  Manhattan 
Island.  In  the  second  place,  the  character  of  the 
miracles  is  so  vaguely  indicated,  the  nature  of  the 
old  man's  philosophy  so  shadowy,  that  he  tends  to 
become  a  mere  deus  ex  machina,  a  theatrical  device, 
not  a  breathing,  living  force  of  mind  and  spirit. 
Finally,  this  sudden  and  complete  conversion  of  four 
crooks  from  wickedness  not  only  to  honesty  but  to 
a  desire  for  a  bucolic  existence  with  rural  spouses  in 
a  Maine  village  is  indeed  a  miracle,  when  all  that 
they  have  done  is  to  look  upon  a  sweet  old  man  with 
white  whiskers  and  see  a  cripple  walk.  Of  course, 


MR.  COHAN'S  BELIEF  IN  MIRACLES     95 

great  things  have  taken  place  within  their  souls — 
nothing  less  than  complete  revolution,  in  fact.  But 
Mr.  Cohan  has  neither  the  technique  to  portray  that 
inner  revolution  nor  the  knowledge,  perhaps,  to 
understand  it.  We  see  merely  the  unconvincing 
externals  of  the  conversion.  The  real  meat  of  it 
escapes  entirely — and  would,  indeed,  escape  almost 
any  dramatist,  for  it  is  well  nigh  impossible  to 
dramatize  a  soul-state. 

Of  course,  it  may  be  urged  that  such  people  as 
these  crooks  are  the  very  ones  most  susceptible  to 
the  forces  which  make  for  a  complete  conversion, 
and  we  readily  grant  it.  We,  too,  have  read  "Twice 
Born  Men."  And  we  even  knew  it  before  that  book 
appeared.  It  is  also  a  fact  that  truth  is  stranger 
than  fiction;  but  a  great  many  stories,  which  are 
justified  by  being  based  on  fact,  are  none  the  less 
quite  unconvincing  in  an  art  form.  The  truths  told 
of  in  "Twice  Born  Men"  are  stranger  than  the  fic- 
tions of  "The  Miracle  Man" ;  everything  in  Cohan's 
play  might  have  a  basis  of  fact;  but  it  wouldn't  be 
a  bit  more  convincing  as  an  art  product.  In  art 
form  a  story  must  not  only  be  true,  it  must  seem  true, 
it  must  let  us  see  the  processes  going  on  within  the 
characters  at  all  times,  so  that  we  can  understand 
and  be  convinced.  This  task  is  too  much  for  Mr. 


96  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Cohan.  He  has  neither  the  skill  nor  the  necessary 
knowledge  of  the  human  soul.  The  nearest  he 
comes  to  it  is  in  the  case  of  the  "queen,"  because 
her  conversion  is  less  a  matter  of  "faith"  (and  just 
what  Mr.  Cohan  means  by  faith  he  seems  to  have 
only  the  vaguest  idea)  than  of  the  sweet  influences 
of  a  quiet  home  and  a  gentle,  loving  old  man,  whom 
she  grows  to  respect  and  love.  Such  influences  are 
understandable  to  author  and  audience  alike. 

The  present  writer  has  been  accused  of  attacking 
Mr.  Cohan  unkindly.  He  hopes  he  has  done 
nothing  of  the  kind.  Nobody  can  be  blind  to  Mr. 
Cohan's  exceptional  merits  and  abilities.  What- 
ever he  does — acting,  writing,  staging — he  does 
efficiently,  remarkably  efficiently,  up  to  a  certain 
point.  He  knows  most  of  the  tricks  of  the  trade, 
he  knows  what  the  public  likes,  he  knows  how  to  pick 
actors,  he  knows  how  to  keep  a  story  moving  briskly, 
plausibly;  he  knows  how  to  write  farce  better  than 
anybody  else  in  America.  But  one  thing  he  does 
not  know — the  human  soul.  His  plays  have  never 
yet  gone  below  the  surface  of  emotion,  they  have 
never  probed  human  conduct,  whether  seriously  or 
comically,  they  have  never  reached  the  level  of  dra- 
matic literature,  any  more  than  the  plays  of  Dion 


MR.  COHAN'S  BELIEF  IN  MIRACLES     97 

Boucicault  did,  who  in  his  generation  was  as  prolific 
and  successful  as  Mr.  Cohan. 

While  we  are  hailing  Cohan  as  the  "leader"  of 
our  stage,  because  he  gives  us  so  many  successful  en- 
tertainments, aren't  we  by  way  of  forgetting  that 
leaders  are  made  of  sterner  stuff  than  this?  Because 
"The  Miracle  Man"  so  well  illustrates  Cohan's 
failures  as  a  dramatist,  as  well  as  some  of  his  con- 
spicuous merits  (for  the  story  is  told,  on  the  ob- 
jective side,  with  genuine  narrative  art),  it  is  worthy 
of  this  considerable  consideration,  though  as  liter- 
ature it  is  nil.  It  also  illustrates  his  ambitions — and 
for  that  reason  we  hope  it  succeeds.  The  ambition 
is  honorable  and  may  lead  to  better  things. 

The  chief  part  in  "The  Miracle  Man"  is  adroitly 
played  by  George  Nash.  Miss  Gail  Kane  is  the 
"queen."  She  would  be  more  effective  if  she  had 
not  assiduously  cultivated  a  round  shouldered  stoop 
and  forward  thrust  of  the  head  which  perilously  sug- 
gests a  giraffe. 


A  VICTORY  OF  UNPRETENTIOUSNESS 

"Too  Many  Cooks" — jpth  Street  Theater^ 
February  25,  1914 

It  is  always  a  tendency  of  drama  to  run  to  ex- 
tremes, to  strong  contrasts.  If  it  seeks  romance,  it 
seeks  it  in  China  or  Persia,  in  the  Ireland  of  a  cen- 
tury ago,  in  the  mythical  kingdom  of  Zenda.  In 
these  latter  years  it  seeks  sex  problems  in  the  brothel. 
Striving  to  be  lowly  or  bucolic,  it  turns  to  Sag  Har- 
bor or  the  state  of  Maine.  Any  city  life  portrayed 
must  be  New  York  City  life,  with  a  strong  emphasis 
laid  on  the  terrible  business  strain  undergone  by  the 
men  and  the  terrible  temptations  to  extravagance  re- 
sisted in  vain  by  the  women.  There  is  no  play  about 
Atlanta,  Ga.,  or  Indianapolis,  Ind.,  and,  we  were 
going  to  say,  Pawtucket,  R.  I. — though  Gus  Thomas 
did  write  "The  Earl  of  Pawtucket,"  with  the  scene 
laid  in  the  Waldorf-Astoria,  New  York.  When  we 
think  what  our  country  is,  what  myriad  problems 
its  various  peoples  face,  our  native  drama  seems 
sometimes  a  pitifully  tiny  scratch  on  the  surface. 

98 


VICTORY  OF  UNPRETENTIOUSNESS     99 

And  now  a  young  actor,  Frank  Craven,  who  be- 
came somewhat  famous  as  Brother  Jimmy  in 
"Bought  and  Paid  For,"  has  appeared  with  a  new 
play  called  "Too  Many  Cooks,"  and  without  any 
flourish  of  trumpets,  without  any  proclamation  of 
purpose,  without  any  literary  pretensions  whatso- 
ever, has  made  a  scratch  in  a  new  place,  and  we  are 
disposed  to  think  a  deeper  scratch  than  he  knew,  or 
the  "literary'*  dramatists  will  admit. 

"Too  Many  Cooks"  is  written  in  the  bald  ver- 
nacular, with  the  brisk  and  picturesque  slang  of 
bright,  middle-class  young  men  enlivening  it.  But 
even  this  slang  is  not  the  sort  you  can  come  away 
quoting.  It  grows  from  the  situation,  and  dies  with 
it.  The  fun  of  the  play,  like  the  language,  is  born 
out  of  the  plot  at  any  given  moment.  None  of  the 
characters  aspires  to  a  "philosophy,"  or  would  recog- 
nize such  a  thing  if  he  met  it.  There  is  no  preacher 
in  the  cast. 

Yet  the  play  is  real,  it  sets  before  us  in  its  quiet, 
luminous  way  a  cross  section  of  American  life  and 
with  typical  American  disregard  for  any  niceties  of 
expression  shows  us  the  nai've  ideals  of  the  suburbs. 
In  the  truer  sense  of  literature — if  we  must  apply  a 
word  meant  for  the  printed  page  to  the  acted  drama 
— "Too  Many  Cooks"  is  literature,  because  it  is  a 
true  picture  with  the  power  to  win  our  interests  and 


ioo  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

sympathies,  and  by  winning  them  to  make  us  see 
a  little  plainer  and  understand  a  little  better  a  phase 
of  our  national  life.  If  this  isn't  literature  in  the 
best  sense,  as  applied  to  stage  performance,  we  do 
not  know  what  is.  It  is  not  great  literature,  to  be 
sure,  which  will  always  have  style  and  philosophy. 
But  it  is  far  better  than  the  weak  imitations  of  the 
"near-highbrows." 

The  hero  of  "Too  Many  Cooks,"  who  is  played 
by  Mr.  Craven  (like  Gillette  and  Cohan,  he  acts  as 
well  as  writes  his  pieces),  is  a  genial,  bright  young 
middle-class  clerk  who  has  fallen  in  love  with  a 
pretty  little  stenographer,  and  is  going  to  marry  her. 
His  name  is  Albert  Bennett,  hers  Alice  Cook.  She 
is  a  third  generation  Irish-American  with  a  good 
high  school  education,  and  all  the  earmarks  of  her 
fiance's  class.  Just  how  her  Hibernian  parents 
achieved  the  name  Cook  is  not  explained.  These 
parents  are  only  second  generation,  and  her  innumer- 
able Cook  relatives  have  not  gone  so  far  as  she  has 
along  the  social  path.  Albert  hadn't  seen  many  of 
the  relatives  during  his  courtship,  since  in  his  walk 
of  life  courtship  consists  of  being  left  alone  with 
your  "girl"  in  the  parlor.  If  he  had,  he  would 
simply  have  said  he  was  marrying  her,  not  her  "rela- 
tions"— which  is  American,  surely! 


VICTORY  OF  UNPRETENTIOUSNESS    101 

That,  of  course,  was  his  mistake — and  hers. 
Trouble  comes  soon  after  the  rising  of  the  first  cur- 
tain. 

The  first  set  shows  the  brick  foundations  of  the 
little  home  they  are  building  amid  the  suburban 
fields  somewhere  outside  of  the  city.  They  have 
saved  hard  to  buy  this  little  plot  of  ground  and  erect 
this  tiny  cottage.  It  represents  the  best  dreams  and 
ideals  life  holds  for  them.  Hopping  over  the  foun- 
dations, Albert  points  tenderly  into  the  vacant  air, 
indicating  where  each  room  is  to  be.  But  he  has 
brought  a  friend  with  him — a  bachelor  friend,  who 
makes  the  kind  of  remarks  bachelors  do  make  on  such 
occasions — and  Alice  doesn't  like  him.  Alice  has 
brought  a  friend,  too,  who  at  once  tells  Alice  that 
Albert's  "den"  ought  to  be  her  sewing  room  instead. 
Albert  doesn't  like  this  girl,  you  may  be  sure.  Then 
Alice's  relatives  descend.  They  are,  after  all,  her 
relatives,  and  she  loves  them.  But,  alas !  they  strike 
terror  to  the  heart  of  Albert.  They  begin  at  once 
to  call  the  house  "our"  house,  talk  about  what  "we" 
are  going  to  do,  and  the  clouds  gather. 

In  Act  2  we  see  the  frame  of  the  little  home  all 
up.  Albert's  uncle,  who  is  wealthy  and  unmarried, 
has  arrived  on  the  scene.  In  a  burst  of  generosity 
he  tells  Albert  and  Alice  he  will  give  them  the  house. 


102  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Then  he  decides  to  come  and  live  with  them  in 
it,  and  begins  to  plan  alterations.  Alice  weeps. 
Her  relatives  again  appear.  It  seems  her  maiden 
aunt  was  going  to  have  the  room  chosen  by  Albert's 
uncle  (the  only  spare  room  in  the  house).  Albert 
doesn't  weep,  but  he  goes  around  the  corner.  The 
act  ends  with  the  engagement  broken  off.  To  cap 
Albert's  woes,  the  carpenters  go  on  strike,  and  we 
see  him  at  the  close  trying  to  lug  a  bunch  of  shingles 
up  a  ladder,  to  complete  the  job  himself. 

In  the  last  act  the  house  is  finished — with  the 
shingles  crooked — and  Albert  is  nailing  a  "For  Sale" 
sign  on  the  street  side.  He  finished  it  because  it 
was  his  dream  and  because  he  had  his  dander  up. 
But  now  he  has  no  use  for  it.  Still,  he  has  planted 
those  rose  bushes  Alice  had  planned  for,  and  one  of 
them  has  borne  a  single  small  white  blossom,  which 
he  contemplates  ruefully.  We  need  scarcely  add 
that  Alice  comes  back,  and  at  the  close  the  pair  of 
little  dreamers  have  packed  off  all  the  relatives  and 
friends,  and  realized  that  they  have,  first  of  all,  their 
own  lives  to  live  in  their  own  way. 

This  is  a  simple  tale  and  it  is  simply  told.  But 
the  setting  is  novel,  the  working  out  fresh  and  bright, 
and  the  spirit  of  it  is  so  human,  so  wholesome,  so 
sane,  the  commonplace  folks  who  are  its  characters 


VICTORY  OF  UNPRETENTIOUSNESS    103 

so  naturally  realized  from  a  class  which  seldom 
figures  in  our  drama,  that  its  appeal  is  quite  irresist- 
ible. 

Mr.  Craven  plays  the  part  of  the  young  clerk  with 
admirable  restraint,  quiet  humor,  and  a  total  free- 
dom from  sentimental  taint.  His  dream  of  a  little 
home  is  human,  not  sentimental,  and  Albert  doesn't 
belong  to  a  class  which  can  make  fine  speeches.  He 
cloaks  his  feelings  in  slang.  "Too  Many  Cooks"  is 
funny,  it  is  wholesome,  it  is  true — and,  best  of  all, 
it  is  unconsciously  and  thoroughly  American. 


THE  SONG  OF  SONGS,  WHICH  IS 
SHELDON'S 

"The  Song  of  Songs" — Eltinge  Theater, 
December  22,  1914 

The  Song  of  Songs,  which  is  Solomon's,  which 
is  Sudermann's,  and  which  is  now  Sheldon's.  A 
sibilant  fate  seems  to  follow  it! 

But  Solomon  need  not  concern  us,  the  more  as 
he  probably  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
original  song.  The  play  by  Edward  Sheldon,  based 
on  the  novel  by  Hermann  Sudermann,  is  our  con- 
cern. "The  Song  of  Songs,"  in  an  English  trans- 
lation, has  gone  into  a  good  many  editions  and  is 
doubtless  familiar  to  many  readers  of  this  review. 
It  is  a  striking  novel,  full  of  that  "admirably  subtle 
psychology"  which  characterizes  the  continental 
novelists  when  they  analyze  sensual  passion,  and 
developing  its  theme  slowly,  with  a  wealth  of  neces- 
sary but  unpleasant  detail,  till  it  builds  up  a  con- 
vincing picture  of  a  certain  type  of  woman — or,  let 
us  say,  a  certain  woman — in  whom  a  sensual  nature 

104 


THE  SONG  OF  SONGS 
Act    IV 


THE  SONG  OF  SONGS  105 

and  a  passionate  seeking  for  ideal  love  work  to- 
gether for  her  undoing.  Since  Sudermann  is  a 
dramatist  as  well  as  a  novelist,  it  may  be  supposed 
that  he  considered  this  theme  one  essentially  adapted 
to  the  novel  rather  than  the  play  form.  At  any 
rate,  he  wrote  it  as  a  novel,  not  a  play. 

Mr.  Sheldon,  however,  has  made  it  into  a  play. 
In  doing  so  he  has  achieved  five  acts  of  hifalutin. 

This  isn't  wholly  his  fault,  by  any  means.  In 
the  first  place,  he  has,  no  doubt  in  accordance  with 
managerial  suggestion,  removed  the  scene  of  the  play 
from  the  Continent  to  America — to  Atlantic  City 
and  New  York.  That  alone  was  a  fatal  error. 
Certain  stories  can  be  shifted  from  land  to  land  with- 
out any  harm  befalling  them.  But  stories  which 
are  told  in  the  realistic  manner,  with  their  effect  de- 
pending so  largely  on  accumulated  detail  and  their 
truth  being  so  largely  a  matter  of  local  conditions, 
cao  not  be  so  transplanted.  You  can  not  transplant 
Gorky's  "Night  Refuge"  to  a  Mills  hotel,  nor  "Anna 
Karenina"  to  New  York  City,  nor  "Hedda  Gabler" 
to  Indianapolis.  Neither  can  you  transplant  "The 
Song  of  Songs."  You  might,  to  be  sure,  select  some 
American  character  who  would  correspond  in  tem- 
perament to  Lily,  and  then  tell  her  story.  But  it 
would  be  quite  a  different  story,  and  your  play  or 


106  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

your  novel  would  not  be  Sudermann's.  Suder- 
mann's  story  is  essentially  continental.  It  is  so  es- 
sentially continental  that  the  present  writer,  who 
saw  the  play  before  he  read  the  book,  was  constantly 
uneasy  in  the  theater,  declaring  to  himself  over  and 
over,  "This  thing  is  not  so,  this  thing  is  not  so." 
The  moment  the  scene  and  characters  were  labeled 
American  they  stepped  out  of  the  world  of  reality 
into  the  world  of  pasteboard. 

A  very  good  case  in  point  is  furnished  by  the  end- 
ing to  the  second  act.  In  the  play  Lily  marries  a 
man  who  is  considerably  less  of  a  degenerate  than 
the  colonel  in  the  book,  and  marries  him  because  her 
lover  in  the  first  act,  Richard  Laird,  a  member  of 
the  Knickerbocker  Club,  if  you  please,  leaves  her 
without  asking  for  a  word  of  explanation  when  he 
finds  she  knows  the  old  roue,  who  is  a  senator  instead 
of  a  colonel.  A  year  has  passed,  and  Lily  has  been 
a  good  girl.  There  has  been  no  affair  with  anybody, 
as  there  was  with  Walter  in  the  novel.  But  Richard 
still  loves  her,  and  he  comes  to  her  room  when  he 
thinks  the  senator  is  absent  from  home.  The  sen- 
ator surprises  him  there,  and  orders  Lily  out  of  the 
house.  Now,  in  the  play,  she  has  done  nothing 
wrong,  and  there  has  been  nothing  to  suggest  that  she 
is  that  sort.  The  lover  is  a  young  American,  a  mem- 


THE  SONG  OF  SONGS  107 

her  of  a  fine  old  family.  She  beseeches  the  senator 
not  to  throw  her  out,  not  to  "make  her  a  bad 
woman,"  not  to  drive  her  into  the  arms  of  the  other 
man.  He  is  relentless,  and  she  goes,  and  we  find 
her  in  Act  III  as  the  gay  mistress  of  Richard,  drink- 
ing cocktails  four  years  later  and  kissing  all  her  men 
visitors. 

Why?  As  Americans  we  resent  this.  We  have 
not  been  shown  any  reason  for  such  a  degeneration 
in  her  character,  perhaps  because  the  limits  of  a  play 
do  not  permit  of  such  intricate  psychology  as  Suder- 
mann  used  in  the  novel.  But,  still  more,  there  is 
no  reason  for  it  in  the  situation.  Richard  is  repre- 
sented as  an  American.  Would  not  his  first  instinct, 
then,  have  been  to  take  Lily  to  some  home  where 
she  could  remain  till  she  had  her  divorce,  and  then 
have  married  her?  He  is  not  represented,  certainly, 
as  seeking  her  at  the  beginning  with  any  less  honor- 
able intent.  She  had  not  sinned.  There  was  no 
bar  an  American  recognizes.  Moreover,  her  trou- 
bles were  all  due  to  his  foolishness.  No,  in  this 
American  setting,  with  the  lack  of  subtlety  in  the 
character  drawing  to  make  matters  worse,  the  latter 
acts  of  Mr.  Sheldon's  play  do  not  belong  to  the  first 
two  acts  at  all.  They  do  not  follow  inevitably.  In 
fact,  they  inevitably  do  not  follow.  They  are  a 


io8  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

mere  arbitrary  concession  to  the  plot  of  an  alien 
story.  The  play,  which  up  to  that  point  was  in- 
telligible at  least,  becomes  false,  and  the  picture  of 
Lily  going  about  with  her  Song  of  Songs  hugged  to 
her  bosom  and  babbling  about  ideals  as  she  turns 
from  one  amour  to  another,  becomes  ridiculous. 
Ideals,  we  say,  do  not  make  a  woman  a  strumpet. 
Of  course,  they  did  in  Sudermann's  novel,  because 
we  were  carefully  led  to  understand  how  they  were 
unsupported  by  reasoning  faculties,  how  they  were 
combined  with  a  nature  deeply  sensuous  to  the  point 
of  sensuality,  and  how  they  were  debased  in  a  web 
of  terrible  circumstances  that  are  almost  inconceiv- 
able in  our  American  civilization — meaning,  of 
course,  a  Saxon  civilization,  not  the  narrow  world 
of  Broadway,  where  an  alien  life  prevails  amid  a 
chaos  of  races  strongly  Semitic. 

Accordingly,  the  play  never  gets  to  our  emotions, 
in  spite  of  some  very  excellent  acting.  Miss  Irene 
Fenwick  sustains  the  role  of  Lily  with  considerably 
more  success  than  might  be  expected.  Of  course, 
nobody  who  didn't  look  very  young  and  pretty  and 
virginal  could  carry  it  off,  and  yet  any  actress  with 
these  qualifications  is  almost  sure  to  lack  the  powers 
of  subtlety  required.  Possibly  Laurette  Taylor 
could  play  it,  but  hardly  another.  John  Mason  is 


THE  SONG  OF  SONGS  109 

the  old  senator;  Ernest  Glendenning  the  young 
student  whom  Lily  loves  toward  the  end;  Tom  Wise 
the  old  uncle  who  makes  her  drunk;  and  other  ex- 
cellent players  are  also  concerned.  But  they  can 
not  achieve  a  moving  play.  Every  effort  has  been 
made  to  put  on  the  stage  as  much  of  the  sexual  ele- 
ment as  it  is  believed  the  public  will  stand.  No 
doubt  this  is  what  the  manager  calls  "the  punch." 
But  the  public  prefers  that  appeal  in  the  form  (or 
forms)  of  the  Ziegfeld  Follies.  "The  Song  of 
Songs,"  which  is  Sudermann's,  is  a  novel,  and  a  Ger- 
man novel.  It  refuses  to  become  an  American  play. 
Thus  truth  again  triumphs,  as  it  has  a  way  of  doing. 


THE  POOR  WORKING  GIRL  SUFFERS 
AGAIN 

"Common  Clay" — Republic  Theater^ 
August  26,  1915 

Mr.  Cleves  Kinkead,  while  a  special  student  in 
Prof.  Baker's  course  in  playwriting,  won  the  Craig 
prize  with  a  drama  called  "Common  Clay,"  which 
was  produced  in  the  spring  of  1915  by  Mr.  Craig's 
stock  company  at  the  Castle  Square  Theater,  in  Bos- 
ton. Slightly  altered  during  the  summer,  it  has  now 
been  produced  at  the  Republic  Theater  in  New 
York,  with  a  verse  from  Kipling  misquoted  on  the 
program. 

In  this  play,  Mr.  Kinkead  teed  up  a  fine  idea  and 
got  off  a  good  drive  which,  however,  developed  a 
slice  into  a  bunker.  He  made  a  splendid  recovery 
to  the  edge  of  the  green,  but  flubbed  his  chip  shot, 
and  then  ended  disastrously  by  taking  three  putts. 
He  might  possibly  have  done  a  stroke  better  with 
some  other  manager  than  A.  H.  Woods  for  a  caddie, 
but  anyway  you  look  at  it  he  isn't  down  to  par  yet. 


no 


THE  POOR  WORKING  GIRL        ill 

(We  write  in  this  fashion  because  The  New  York 
Tribune  has  made  its  baseball  reporter  the  dramatic 
critic.  We  see  no  reason  why  golf  shouldn't  be 
recognized  as  well.) 

"Common  Clay"  has  two  great  assets  to  popular- 
ity— the  long  arm  of  coincidence  and  a  ruined  fe- 
male. The  public  dearly  loves  them  both.  It  has 
one  asset  to  more  serious  consideration — it  pleads  for 
the  proper  satisfaction  of  the  normal  instinct  of 
youth  to  get  out  and  have  a  good  time.  In  that  plea 
we  feel  that  the  author  was  perfectly  sincere.  In 
his  attempt  to  weave  that  plea  into  a  stage  narrative, 
however,  his  sincerity  frequently  ran  amuck  of  prob- 
lems beyond  his  skill,  and  the  result  is,  for  the  most 
part,  in  spite  of  all  the  good  words  said  for  it,  a 
rather  false  and  artificial  melodrama,  with  a  few 
very  curious  perversions  of  ethical  fundamentals. 

The  play  opens  in  the  "reception  room"  of  the 
Fullerton  house  in  "any  large  American  city  in  the 
middle  west."  The  Fullertons  are  giving  a  recep- 
tion. They  are  very  rich.  Mrs.  Fullerton  lets  it 
be  known  that  she  has  trouble  in  keeping  domestics. 
A  look  at  the  wall  paper  provided  by  the  scenic  artist 
convinces  us  of  the  reason.  Anyhow,  she  has  just 
acquired  a  new  domestic,  Ellen  Neal,  played  by  Jane 
Cowl.  Some  twenty  years  or  more  before  the  play 


112  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

opened  Mrs.  Fullerton  also  had  acquired  a  son,  who 
in  turn  acquired  a  taste  for — well,  for  domestics. 
He  is  at  home  just  now  from  college,  where  we  hear 
he  is  an  athlete.  (All  college  men  are  athletes  in 
the  drama,  which  is  why  they  -are  played  by  soft 
looking  actors  like  Orme  Caldara.)  He  learns  from 
another  man  at  the  party  that  Ellen  hasn't  been 
"straight"  in  the  past,  so,  of  course,  that  eases  his 
conscience  and  he  proceeds  to  make  love  to  her. 

Act  II,  nearly  a  year  later.  There  has  been  a 
baby — a  boy.  Ellen  demands  that  he  have  his 
share  of  young  Fullerton's  fortune,  even  if  he  doesn't 
bear  his  father's  name.  The  old  family  friend, 
Judge  Filson,  is  called  in  as  counsel.  Of  course,  you 
must  realize  that  John  Mason  plays  this  part. 
Dear,  dear,  the  matter  must  be  kept  out  of  court, 
to  avoid  a  scandal  on  the  fair  name  of  the  Fuller- 
tons.  The  judge  faintly  suggests  to  Fullerton  pere 
that  son  Hugh  might  offer  to  marry  the  girl.  The 
reason  he  has  this  absurd  idea,  it  seems,  is  because 
years  ago  he,  Judge  Filson,  loved  a  daughter  of  joy, 
and  she,  when  about  to  become  a  mother,  drowned 
herself  rather  than  hamper  his  career.  This  has 
tended  to  soften  his  sympathies — as  well  it  might- 
The  case  does  get  into  court,  however,  and  the  court 
scene  makes  the  "big  act,"  for  in  it  Ellen  tells  why 


THE  POOR  WORKING  GIRL        113 

and  how  she  first  went  wrong.  The  story  she  tells 
is  very  human  and  true,  and  it  is  a  pity  the  author 
had  not  been  literary  artist  enough  to  tell  it  in  Ellen's 
own  language,  and  not  a  language  made  up  of  street 
slang,  "fine  writing"  and  special  pleading  mixed  in 
equal  parts. 

Then  comes  in  the  long  arm  of  coincidence.  Lo 
and  behold,  the  judge's  mistress  gave  birth  to  a 
daughter  before  she  died,  and  Ellen  is  the  daughter ! 
In  the  name  of  Melpomene,  why*?  So  there  could 
be  a  father  and  daughter  scene1?  The  judge,  broken 
in  spirit,  overwhelmed  with  emotion,  tries  to  tell 
Ellen  he  is  her  father,  and  she  thinks  he  is  trying  to 
make  love  to  her.  That  is  a  good  moment.  Then 
she  realizes  the  truth  of  what  he  says,  and  from  there 
on  the  play  falls  into  the  feeblest  of  convention- 
alized situation.  The  judge  sends  her  to  Paris  to 
study,  and  in  ten  years  she  returns  a  radiant  prima 
donna,  and  falls  into  the  arms  of  the  penitent  Hugh 
Fullerton,  who  has  never  ceased  to  wonder  where  she 
is,  and  has  joined  the  Progressive  party.  This  is 
told  in  an  epilogue,  which  for  unadulterated  mush 
and  sentimental  mawkishness  and  falsity  very  nearly 
takes  the  cake. 

It  is  conceivable  that  if  the  play  had  been  done 
by  a  more  intelligent  manager  a  certain  amount  of 
its  present  crudeness  could  have  been  rubbed  off. 


1 14  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Since  the  managers  brand  their  names  all  over  the 
programs,  we  feel  no  hesitation  in  giving  them  a 
share  of  praise  or  blame,  and,  of  course,  A.  H.  Woods 
is  not  the  man  to  put  on  a  play  with  a  serious  pur- 
pose. Woods,  doubtless,  saw  in  the  play  a  raw 
appeal.  But  this  raw  appeal  here  is  tempered  by 
the  author's  purpose  and  pity,  so  that  it  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  fails  of  Mr.  Woods's  intention. 
"Common  Clay"  remains  a  curious  mixture  of  the 
good  and  the  bad — at  times  almost  a  fine  success,  at 
times  merely  a  creaking  melodrama. 

Miss  Cowl  gives  a  fairly  good  performance, 
though  in  a  curiously  monotonous  and  single  key. 
Of  course  John  Mason  can  handle  his  role  without 
trouble.  The  "hero"  is  played  by  Orme  Caldara, 
a  poor  choice.  In  the  early  acts  he  should  look  like 
a  healthy  young  animal  of  two  and  twenty,  and  his 
sin  with  Ellen  should  be  as  much  the  fault  of  nature 
as  of  himself.  Mr.  Caldara  plays  the  role  like  a 
typical  seducer.  He  puts  a  blush  where  no  blush 
should  lurk — or  is  it  a  leer? 

If  Mr.  Kinkead  is  going  to  continue  writing 
sociological  dramas,  however,  he  will  need  more  than 
a  better  cast  and  a  wiser  manager.  He  will  need 
to  learn  that  the  simple  problems  of  good  and  evil 


THE  POOR  WORKING  GIRL        115 

are  enough  to  make  a  play  of,  without  dragging  in 
ridiculous  coincidences,  and  that  the  only  eloquence 
on  the  stage  is  the  eloquence  of  natural  speech,  spon- 
taneously flowing  from  the  characters. 


"THE  UNCHASTENED  WOMAN,"  A  REAL 
CHARACTER  STUDY 

"The  Unchastened  Woman" — jptk  Street  Theater, 
October  p,  /p/5 

To  realize  what  a  childish  and  trivial  thing  our 
drama  has  been,  in  the  main,  for  many  moons,  one 
has  only  to  see  Louis  K.  Anspacher's  new  play 
"The  Unchastened  Woman,"  which  was  produced 
in  Los  Angeles  last  year  by  Morosco,  and  has  now 
been  brought  into  New  York  by  that  enterprising 
manager.  The  very  fact  that  "The  Unchastened 
Woman"  is  in  no  sense  a  great  play;  that  it  is  re- 
markable neither  for  wit  and  charming  narration, 
nor  cleverness  of  construction,  nor  depth  of  emo- 
tional appeal,  makes  it  all  the  better  a  test  of  our 
dramatic  triviality.  For,  in  spite  of  its  lack  of  any 
superlative  qualities,  the  spectator,  nevertheless, 
finds  himself  watching  and  listening  with  a  vast 
sense  of  relief  that  here,  at  last,  is  a  play  which  says 
something,  and  something  about  people. 

In  short,  "The  Unchastened  Woman"  is  a  char- 
116 


"THE  UNCHASTENED  WOMAN"       117 

acter  study — and  if  you  will  go  through  the  painful 
process  of  recalling  to  mind  all  the  American  plays 
you've  witnessed  in  the  last  few  years,  how  many 
can  you  honestly  say  reached  the  dignity  of  a  charac- 
ter study?  Yes,  there  was  "Romance" — we  thought 
of  that,  too.  There  was  "The  Easiest  Way."  There 
was  "The  Concert."  No  fair — we  are  talking  about 
American  plays.  "The  Concert"  was  Teutonic. 
"Potash  and  Perlmutter"  ?  Well,  have  it  your  own 
way,  but  that  isn't  what  we  mean  by  character  study. 
These  two  gentlemen  were  genre  portraits,  perhaps. 
They  were  what  the  average  actor  means  by  a  "char- 
acter part."  Oh,  well,  the  hour  is  late.  Of  course, 
there  was  "The  Girl  With  the  Green  Eyes,"  by 
Fitch,  and  the  heroine  of  his  best  play,  "The  Truth" 
— but  poor  Fitch  has  been  dead  these  many  years  and 
we  who  called  him  a  butterfly  would  now  be  dis- 
posed to  call  him  something  considerably  more  burky. 
At  least,  he  was  big  enough  to  put  real  characters 
on  the  stage  and  devote  a  play  to  depicting  their 
insides.  The  best  some  of  the  soaring  eagles  who 
have  followed  him  can  do  is  to  grind  out  farces  and 
melodramas,  and  crown  G.  M.  Cohan  king. 

Mr.  Anspacher  (who  is  the  husband  of  Katheryn 
Kidder)  in  his  new  play  has  followed  in  Fitch's  foot- 
steps, to  the  extent  of  making  his  heroine  his  chief 


u8  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

concern  and  picking  her  from  the  ranks  of  the  idle 
and  frivolous  urban  society.  His  play  is  centered 
around  this  character  study;  it  is  the  unfolding  of 
this  character  and  the  effects  wrought  by  this  char- 
acter on  other  people  which  make  the  interest  for 
the  spectator.  The  character  chosen  being  an  inter- 
esting (if  unusual)  one,  and  the  exposition  being 
conducted  in  the  main  with  skill  and  fidelity  to 
nature,  the  comedy  has  the  dignity  of  real  dramatic 
literature,  and,  of  course,  it  is  popular.  We  say  "of 
course,"  because  a  good  play  is  almost  always  pop- 
ular when  it  is  a  clear-cut  character  study. 

The  Unchastened  Woman  of  the  title  is  a  certain 
Mrs.  Caroline  Knollys,  wife  of  Hubert  Knollys,  and 
she  is  perhaps  Mr.  Anspacher's  idea  of  what  Hedda 
Gabler  would  be  like  if  Hedda  lived  in  East  Sixty- 
first  street,  New  York.  That,  of  course,  is  hardly 
fair  either  to  Mr.  Anspacher  or  Hedda — but  the  idea 
we  wish  to  convey  is  that  he  has  attempted  the  study 
of  a  woman  who  is  incapable  of  being  a  true  and 
normal  wife  because  of  her  essentially  selfish  and 
trivial  nature,  and  who  is  equally  incapable  of  being 
an  ultimately  unfaithful  wife  because  of  her  lack  of 
real  passions,  and  still  more  her  fear  of  the  shell  of 
convention.  This  feline  female  he  has  endowed 
with  a  kind  of  perpetual  youth,  a  purring  charm,  a 


"THE  UNCHASTENED  WOMAN"      119 

dominant  will,  a  pretty  wit,  and  the  manners  of  her 
luxurious  class.  Here  is  meat  for  the  actress,  and 
the  promise  of  trouble  enough  to  keep  a  story  on 
the  jump. 

Of  course,  the  trouble  comes  through  Caroline's 
attempts  to  win  another  man  away  from  his  wife. 
He  is  an  architect,  and  she  wishes  to  emancipate  his 
soul,  so  she  tells  him.  What  she  wants  to  do,  of 
course,  is  to  make  as  much  mischief  as  she  can  with- 
out herself  being  scorched.  Once,  she  caught  her 
husband  in  actual  unfaithfulness,  and  she  has  that 
whip  over  him.  She  herself  has  never  gone  that 
far — and  they  live  in  New  York  State.  Therefore 
she  keeps  the  protection  of  his  name. 

The  play  would  be  much  more  interesting  if  Caro- 
line had  picked  out  a  more  interesting  victim  than 
Lawrence  Sanbury,  struggling  architect.  He  is,  as 
her  own  husband  says,  pretty  feeble  game.  Yet  the 
author,  by  choosing  him,  has  nevertheless  been  able 
to  make  use  of  certain  phases  of  New  York  life, 
which,  so  far  as  we  recall,  have  hitherto  lacked  ex- 
pression. For  instance,  Lawrence's  wife  is  one  of 
those  strong,  energetic,  idealistic,  radical  young 
women  who  just  now  are  so  numerous  in  New  York 
(and  elsewhere)  and  are  often  actually  accomplish- 
ing so  much  in  organization  of  the  garment  workers, 


120  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

in  industrial  reform,  in  charities  and  even  in  liter- 
ature. To  throw  into  strong  contrast  such  a  woman 
as  this  and  such  a  product  of  the  parasitic  rich  as 
Caroline  Knollys  is  to  create  instantly  a  living,  vital 
dramatic  situation.  Moreover,  Caroline  would  have 
Lawrence  get  on  in  his  profession,  as  so  many  archi- 
tects and  artists  do  get  on,  by  kotowing  and  boot- 
licking to  the  rich — his  wife  would  have  him  get  on 
by  her  ideals  instead,  by  being  uncompromisingly 
himself.  When  the  play  begins,  it  is  she  who  is 
earning  the  family  living,  and  they  dwell  in  a 
"model  tenement"  on  the  East  Side,  among  the  rad- 
icals and  the  realities.  When  Caroline  comes  to 
this  tenement,  again  we  have  a  striking  contrast 
created.  There  is  no  question  but  Mr.  Anspacher 
has  chosen  sound  material  for  his  play,  worth  while 
material,  true  material. 

We  do  not  propose  to  attempt  a  narrative  of  the 
plot.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  Caroline  goes  a  little 
too  far  with  Lawrence,  evidently  because  for  once 
something  approximating  a  human  passion  stirs  in 
her,  and  her  husband  is  able  to  get  a  whip  hand  over 
her — based,  to  be  sure,  on  evidence  he  knows  really 
does  not  mean  actual  guilt,  but  which  would  ruin  the 
conventional  reputation  she  needs  for  her  worldly 
position.  With  that  aid,  he  and  Mrs.  Sanbury  be- 


'THE  UNCHASTENED  WOMAN"      121 

tween  them  save  Lawrence  from  her  clutches,  though 
by  this  time  Mrs.  Sanbury  has  realized  that  her  hus- 
band is  hardly  in  her  class  for  manhood,  and  you 
wonder,  rather,  whether  Mr.  Anspacher  really  ex- 
pects you  to  accept  their  final  reconciliation  as  a 
happy  ending.  Meanwhile,  after  humiliating  Caro- 
line by  forcing  her  publicly  to  apologize  for  certain 
things  she  has  said,  the  rest  of  the  characters  have 
to  see  her  make  a  final  exit  quite  unchastened,  with 
a  smiling  and  rapierlike  innuendo  on  her  lips.  She 
isn't  regenerated.  She  is  never  sympathetic.  Un- 
like Hedda,  she  isn't  even  tragic.  Yet  she  is  the 
heroine  and  pivot  of  the  play — and  it  is  packing 
the  theater. 

The  part  is  played  by  Miss  Emily  Stevens,  and 
it  is  quite  the  best  performance  she  has  ever  given. 
To  be  sure,  it  is  quite  the  best  part  she  has  ever  had. 
She  talks  more  than  ever  like  her  relative,  Mrs. 
Fiske.  And,  too,  she  is  allowing  certain  mannerisms 
of  facial  contortion,  and  the  like,  to  set.  Neverthe- 
less, she  has  conceived  the  character  as  a  whole,  and 
executed  her  portrait  with  minute  fidelity.  The 
charm  of  the  woman,  the  vampire  allure,  the  worldly 
ease,  the  ready  wit,  the  restless,  neurasthenic  vacancy 
of  life,  the  selfish  cruelty,  are  all  indicated  surely, 
easily  and  vividly.  If  the  performance  has  one 


122  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

fault  more  than  another,  it  is  a  fault  also  inherent 
in  the  play — the  note  of  a  real  passion  for  Lawrence 
is  not  clearly  enough  indicated.  The  play  is  lackr 
ing  here,  and  Miss  Stevens's  art  also  is  lacking  in 
that  suggestion.  In  this  degenerate  age  of  acting, 
however,  it  is  wisest  to  be  grateful  for  a  true  char- 
acter study,  and  not  cavil. 

Others  in  an  excellently  trained  cast  who  deserve 
mention  are  H.  Reeves  Smith,  as  Caroline's  middle- 
aged,  ironically  humorous  and  politely  worldly  hus- 
band, and  Miss  Christine  Norman  as  the  wife  of  the 
young  architect,  who  wears  flat-heeled  boots  be- 
cause she  insists  on  the  union  label  and  is  a  woman 
of  poise,  intellect,  deep  feeling,  and  profound  ideals. 
Miss  Norman's  performance  is,  in  its  way,  a  gem  of 
quiet  force  and  suggestiveness.  The  mere  physical 
contrast  between  the  two  women,  as  they  appear  on 
the  stage,  vividly  paints  the  theme. 

The  dialogue  of  the  play,  contrary  to  what  we 
might  expect  from  some  of  Mr.  Anspacher's  pub- 
lished works,  is  not  verbose,  and  it  is  colloquial  with- 
out losing  dignity  and  gracefulness.  All  in  all,  he 
is  to  be  congratulated  on  a  sound  piece  of  work  well 
produced  and  acted,  and  most  deservingly  popular. 


THE  EASY  LOT  OF  THE  STAGE  HERO 

"Hit-the-Trail  Holliday"—Astor  Theater, 
September  ij,  1915 

One  of  the  British  scientists  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury— Grant  Allen,  was  it  not1? — said  that  a  man 
with  a  first-class  mind  never  wanted  to  go  to  "the 
serious  drama"  of  an  evening.  He  wanted  the  com- 
plete relaxation  of  the  music  hall.  The  serious 
drama,  said  this  scientist,  is  for  middle-class  intel- 
lects— his  idea  no  doubt  being  that  reality  is  of  so 
much  more  importance  than  the  usual  little  apings 
of  it  in  the  playhouse  that  the  man  who  sees  reality 
with  large  vision  can  only  be  bored  in  the  theater. 

This  is  an  extreme  point  of  view,  but  it  is  one  most 
of  us  have  now  and  again  shared.  Against  the  stu- 
pendous reality  of  the  Great  War  now  raging  in 
Europe,  for  example,  how  petty,  how  futile,  how  al- 
most insulting  the  war  plays  of  the  hour  seem;  yes, 
even  "Moloch,"  though  it  is  head  and  shoulders 
above  the  rest.  A  little  harmless  flash-light  powder 

exploded,  the  "props"  knocked  out  from  under  some 

123 


124  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

pasteboard,  a  few  actors  falling  down  and  playing 
dead — and  this  in  the  face  of  the  red  shambles  of 
the  Marne !  The  vaudeville  performer  balancing  a 
billiard  ball  on  the  end  of  his  nose  is  at  least  doing 
something  that  von  Hindenberg  probably  can't. 
His  achievement  is  real. 

Nor  is  it  only  at  war  plays  that  we  sometimes 
know  this  feeling  toward  the  stage;  nor  do  we  have 
to  be  "first  class  minds"  to  know  it.  Darwin 
couldn't  endure  Shakespeare,  which  may  have  been 
rather  a  sign  that  even  first-class  minds  have  their 
limitations.  The  middle-class  mind  which  can  en- 
joy Shakespeare  has  just  so  much  advantage.  Yet 
even  the  middle-class  mind  experiences  its  periods  of 
annoyance  at  the  puerilities  of  drama;  only  it  asks 
that  the  drama  rather  measure  up  to  Shakespeare 
than  down  to  the  music  halls.  Even  the  middle- 
class  mind  knows  moments  of  doubt,  when  it  seems 
as  if  the  conventions  which  rule  in  the  playhouse  are 
really  too  childish  to  endure,  when  it  seems  as  if 
popular  appeal  in  the  drama  is  based  on  something 
so  far  removed  from  reality  that  it  isn't  worthy  of 
attention.  Perhaps  a  critic  shouldn't  make  these 
confessions,  but  there  are  times  when  it  is  impossible 
not  to. 

Consider  the  case  of  George  Cohan's  new  play, 


EASY  LOT  OF  THE  STAGE  HERO     125 

"Hit-the-Trail  Holliday."  Mr.  Cohan,  we  are  told, 
is  a  veritable  superman  in  knowing  what  the  public 
wants,  and  giving  it  to  them.  In  fact,  he  knows 
what  the  public  wants  when  the  public  doesn't,  and 
makes  'em  want  his  brand!  Billy  Holliday,  the 
hero  of  the  play,  is  a  barkeeper.  But  he  is  more 
than  that.  He  is  a  Sandow,  a  Romeo,  a  Demos- 
thenes, a  Lloyd  George,  a  Dwight  L.  Moody,  and  a 
George  Ade.  In  short,  he  is  a  Cohanesque  hero. 
To  be  sure,  we  have  to  accept  his  possession  of  the 
attributes  of  all  these  great  men  largely  on  faith, 
but  how  gladly  we  do  so !  Externally,  Billy  Holli- 
day doesn't  even  look  like  a  bar-keeper.  He  looks 
like  a  prosperous  young  actor  from  the  Lambs  Club. 
But  we  are  assured  that  he  is  a  bar-keeper  who  gets 
$100  a  week  for  mixing  drinks.  We  assume  that 
he  is  a  Romeo,  because  by  the  second  act  the  min- 
ister's daughter  is  letting  him  hold  her  hand.  We 
assume  that  he  is  a  Sandow  because  he  pulls  the 
villain  all  over  the  stage  by  the  nose.  We  are  con- 
fident that  he  is  a  mixture  of  Demosthenes  and  Neil 
Dow  because  between  Acts  I  and  II  he  makes  a  mag- 
nificent temperance  oration  which  gets  reported  with 
six-column  scarehead  lines  in  the  New  York 
Tribune.  That  he  is  Lloyd  George  is  readily  proved 
by  the  ease  with  which  he  quells  a  riot  of  brewery 


126  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

employees  and  gives  them  all  a  dollar  a  day  more 
to  work  in  a  new  temperance  drink  factory,  which 
he  organizes  over  night  and  makes  a  howling  success 
in  a  week. 

How  magnificently  easy  it  all  is!  How  every 
situation,  every  character,  in  the  play  "feeds  up" 
this  hero!  Everything  comes  his  way.  Opposi- 
tion? Pff — a  snap  of  the  finger,  a  dental  smile,  a 
slang  phrase — and  it  is  crushed,  obliterated,  wiped 
out  of  existence,  and  our  hero  goes  on  his  triumphal 
way.  He  never  really  has  to  fight,  he  never  really 
has  to  possess  the  weapons  of  brain  and  heart  to 
fight  with.  He  is  a  stage  hero.  Events  and  people 
all  feed  him  up.  He  basks  in  an  eternal  spot  light, 
with  a  wreath  upon  his  brow. 

That  is  the  kind  of  part  an  actor  dearly  loves  to 
play,  and  we  assume  it  is  the  kind  of  part  the  public 
dearly  loves  to  see  played.  Sometimes,  on  witness- 
ing such  a  performance,  even  the  middle-class  mind 
may  be  forgiven  a  preference  for  the  vaudeville  per-, 
former  who  balances  a  billiard  ball  upon  his  nose. 
He  is  really  overcoming  opposition.  The  firm  de- 
termination of  a  billiard  ball  not  to  remain  on  the 
end  of  the  human  nose  is  something  not  easily  to 
be  altered.  The  man  who  can  conquer  this  oppo- 
sition is  at  least  endowed  with  steady  nerves  and 


EASY  LOT  OF  THE  STAGE  HERO     127 

infinite  persistence.     Nobody  feeds  him  up.     His 
struggle  is  more  like  the  struggle  of  life  itself. 

Perhaps,  after  all,  it  boils  down  to  this — that  the 
public  doesn't  really  want  to  see  life  itself  in  the 
playhouse,  but  something  as  different  as  possible, 
while  retaining  the  external  semblance  to  make  it 
look  as  if  life  might  be  that  way.  Perhaps  the 
scientist,  who  dealt  daily  with  realities,  felt  this,  and 
looked  upon  the  theatre  as  a  sham  and  a  delusion. 
Perhaps  the  star-actor  who  demands  a  play  in  which 
all  the  other  characters  feed  him  up  is  following  a 
right  instinct — right,  at  least,  from  the  point  of 
theatrical  success.  We  would  all  like  to  be  heroes: 
The  golfing  duffer  puts  himself  to  sleep  planning 
how  he  might  possibly  do  his  course  in  even  fours. 
(Owen  Johnson  once  made  it  even  threes  and  then 
next  day  wrote  a  story  about  it.)  We  all  love  to 
dream  of  wealth  acquired  at  a  stroke  and  fame 
achieved  by  some  spectacular  performance.  And, 
just  as  the  golf  duffer  does  once  in  a  blue  moon  pull 
off  a  long  hole  one  under  par,  so  life  taunts  us  all  by 
now  and  then  throwing  the  limelight  of  fame  on  an 
easy  achievement.  It  keeps  the  duffer  playing  golf, 
and  it  keeps  the  rest  of  us  in  the  theatre,  perhaps,  ap- 
plauding the  representation  of  the  puerile  and  the 
impossible. 


DON  JUAN  REDIVIVUS 

"The  Great  Lover"  —  Longacre  Theater, 
November  10, 


The  Hattons,  of  Chicago,  collaborating  with  Leo 
Ditrichstein,  have  dramatized  the  male  opera  star, 
the  great  tenor  —  only  in  this  case  he  is  the  great  bary- 
tone, the  Don  Giovanni  of  his  generation.  The 
original  Don  came  to  his  end  at  the  hands  of  the 
commander's  ghost;  but  this  reincarnation,  called 
Jean  Paurel,  comes  to  his  end  merely  by  losing  his 
voice,  and  his  tragedy  is  that  he  faces  a  long  life  of 
recollections  of  past  performances,  rather  than  an- 
ticipations of  performances  to  come.  We  refer,  of 
course,  to  performances  in  the  court  of  love  no  less 
than  on  the  stage  of  opera.  The  play  is  called  "The 
Great  Lover,"  and  the  leading  part  is  taken  by  Mr. 
Ditrichstein  himself.  The  production  was  an  in- 
stantaneous success  and  will  likely  be  in  New  York 
for  the  balance  of  the  winter. 

Three  factors  contribute  to  the  chances  of  success 

for  a  play  with  this  theme. 

128 


DON  JUAN  REDIVIVUS  129 

First,  the  stars  of  the  music  world,  especially  of 
opera,  seem  always  to  live  a  life  apart,  and  with  them 
we  unconsciously  always  associate  the  glamour  of 
great  auditoriums  alive  with  lights  and  jewels,  the 
throb  of  orchestras,  the  peal  of  song.  They  are  pre- 
destined characters  of  romance. 

Second,  the  tragedy  of  the  middle-aged  artist,  the 
failing  of  voice,  the  vanishing  of  charm,  is  a  tragedy 
which  appeals  peculiarly  to  the  interest  and  the  com- 
passion of  laymen,  especially  of  the  gentler  sex.  It 
is  a  tragedy  for  any  woman  to  find  the  wrinkles 
round  her  eyes,  and  she  knows  how  keen  a  tragedy 
it  must  be  for  the  beautiful  actress  to  realize  on  some 
gray  dawn  that  she  is  no  longer  beautiful,  that  her 
day  is  over.  Perhaps  there  are  more  of  us  males 
than  admit  it  who  know  the  pangs  of  sorrow  at  our 
failure  any  longer  to  attract  the  female  smile,  and 
we  can  understand  the  tragedy  of  Don  Giovanni — 
we  who  in  our  secret  hearts  have  always  envied  him ! 

Third,  a  play  about  the  opera,  with  the  scene  laid 
in  New  York,  with  a  set  reproducing  exactly  the 
director's  room  in  the  Metropolitan  Opera  house, 
with  the  leading  character  called  Paurel  (one  letter 
changed  would  make  it  Maurel,  who  was  the  great- 
est impersonator  of  the  Don  in  his  generation),  and 
with  much  of  the  acting  duplicating  what  we  have 


130  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

read  about  the  rows  between  singers,  the  trials  and 
tribulations  of  directors  in  dealing  with  these  tem- 
peramental children — such  a  play  is  sure  to  attract 
curiosity  in  New  York.  It  seems,  somehow,  pe- 
culiarly our  own.  Romantic  though  it  is,  it  answers 
our  need  for  a  play  about  ourselves. 

So  "The  Great  Lover,"  granted  a  good  cast,  a 
good  director,  and  a  bit  of  skill  in  the  writing,  was 
about  as  sure  fire  as  anything  can  be  in  the  theater. 
It  got  the  good  cast,  it  got  one  of  our  best  stage  man- 
agers in  Sam  Forrest,  general  stage  director  for 
Cohan  &  Harris,  and  it  is  written  with  skill  and 
briskness.  The  result  is  a  packed  house  at  every 
performance. 

The  first  act  is  the  liveliest,  and  is  largely  given 
over  to  a  picture  of  the  troubles  of  the-  manager  of 
the  opera  house.  Singers  to  right  of  him,  singers  to 
left  of  him,  conductors  behind  him  and  in  front  of 
him,  volley  and  sputter.  The  major  portion  of  the 
drama  occurs  in  the  second  act,  in  Paurel's  dressing 
room  between  acts  of  "Don  Giovanni."  Paurel  is 
in  love  with  Ethel  Warren,  a  young  American  girl, 
a  soprano  in  the  company.  She,  is  turn,  is  really  in 
love  with  Carlo  Sonino,  a  young  American-born 
barytone,  understudy  to  the  great  Paurel.  But 
Sonino  is  jealous  of  her,  and  in  a  fit  of  pique  she  says 


DON  JUAN  REDIVIVUS  131 

she  will  marry  Paurel.  But  Sabittini,  Italian  so- 
prano, an  old  flame  of  Paurel,  is  to  be  reckoned  with. 
In  the  excitement  of  the  scene  she  causes,  Paurel 
shouts  and  storms — and  suddenly  his  voice  leaves 
him.  At  the  end  of  the  act  he  stands  sobbing  by 
the  door  while  his  youthful  understudy  is  heard  out 
on  the  stage,  singing  gloriously  the  music  of  the 
world's  most  glorious  opera. 

In  the  last  act  Paurel  learns  that  he  will  never 
sing  again.  He  also  realizes  that  Miss  Warren  does 
not  really  love  him,  and  he  makes  the  one  sacrifice 
he  has  ever  made  in  his  pampered  life,  and  gives 
her  up.  Then  he  is  left  alone  with  his  old  servant 
and  his  love  letters — twenty  years  of  love  letters, 
catalogued  by  seasons.  The  old  servant  gets  them 
out.  They  are  his  version  of  Leporello's  list !  Yet 
the  telephone  rings  at  the  end,  and  it  is  a  woman. 
He  is  making  a  date  with  her  as  the  curtain  falls. 
Thus  should  Don  Giovanni  pass — game  to  the  finish. 

Mr.  Ditrichstein's  performance  of  Paurel  is  super- 
ficially a  vivid  characterization,  touched  with  whim- 
sical eccentricity,  full  of  childlike  vanities,  delic- 
iously  Latin  in  its  suavity  and  Latin,  too,  in  its  gusts 
of  temper.  It  is  superficially  so  vivid,  indeed,  that 
perhaps  many  people  will  not  realize  that  it  is  lack- 
ing in  genuine  romantic  charm  and  consequently 


132  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

lacking  in  what  should  be  the  closing  note  of  the 
play — pathos.  That  the  pathos  would  be  ironic 
does  not  alter  our  statement.  When  we  pause  to 
think  how  Mansfield  would  have  played  that  closing 
act,  we  can  see  Mr.  Ditrichstein's  limitations.  We 
may  well  pause,  too,  to  reflect  how  Mansfield  would 
have  looked  in  his  costume  of  the  Don — dressed 
probably  more  as  Renaud  dressed  him,  than  in  the 
conventional  doublet  and  hose — Mansfield  with  a 
full  if  oddly  stiff  romantic  swagger,  with  a  style  free 
from  all  taint  of  the  finicky,  with  gestures  that  were 
not  timid  but  seemed  to  sweep  with  the  sweep  of  the 
orchestral  rhythm.  It  is  a  limitation  of  Mr.  Dit- 
richstein  that  he  can  not  be  truly  romantic  nor 
pathetic,  and  that  he  can  not  quite  measure  up  to  the 
grand  style  of  an  operatic  hero.  Since  his  perform- 
ance, which  is  indeed  a  notable  one,  is  now  being 
hailed  as  a  supremely  great  one,  it  is  wise  to  make 
these  reservations  in  the  interest  of  truth.  It  is  not 
a  great  performance,  any  more  than  the  play  is  a 
great  play.  It  is  the  kind  of  performance  our  stage 
ought  to  be  able  to  show  half  a  dozen  times  a  season 
— but,  alas,  in  recent  years  doesn't  furnish  more  than 
once  in  every  two  or  three  seasons. 

In  such  a  play  as  this,  where  so  many  of  the  char- 
acters must  look  foreign  and  splutter  in  German, 


DON  JUAN  REDIVIVUS  133 

French  and  Italian,  naturally  the  members  of  the 
cast  have  been  chosen  for  their  fitness  thus  to  splutter. 
Where  all  the  Italians  came  from  we  do  not  know, 
but  they  seem  to  be  quite  as  good  actors  as  anybody 
could  wish  for.  Miss  Beverly  Sitgreaves,  one  of  the 
best  players  our  native  stage  boasts,  takes  the  part 
of  the  Italian  prima  donna,  however,  and  gives  a 
vivid  and  delightfully  temperamental  and  vindictive 
performance.  She  could  not  be  more  in  the  picture 
if  her  name  were  really  Sabittini. 

The  play  is  prefaced  by  the  immortal  overture  to 
"Don  Giovanni,"  to  which  nobody  pays  the  slightest 
attention. 


MRS.  FISKE  AMONG  THE  MENNONITES 

"Erstwhile  Susan"  Gaiety  Theater, 
January  /<£,  1916 

The  return  to  the  New  York  stage  of  the  most 
brilliant  actress  now  playing  in  the  English  tongue 
attracted  an  exceptional  audience  to  the  Gaiety 
Theater,  and  this  audience  was  rewarded  by  an  eve- 
ning of  exceptional  enjoyment.  Future  audiences 
may  not  have  quite  so  good  a  time,  because  that  first 
assemblage  was  made  up  so  largely  of  other  players 
— and  it  takes  a  player  to  appreciate  to  the  full,  per- 
haps, the  extraordinary  art  of  Mrs.  Fiske.  More- 
over, there  was  in  the  air  that  night  a  rare  feeling  of 
expectancy  before  she  appeared  and  a  warm  glow  of 
welcome  after  she  came  out,  which  made  the  evening 
memorable.  Mrs.  Fiske  has  not  looked  slimmer  and 
trimmer  in  many  a  year,  and  not  in  a  long  while 
has  she  acted  with  such  abundant  vitality  and  such 
infectious  good  spirits. 

She  has  had  better  parts  to  play.  Her  present 
role  really  makes  very  little  demand  upon  her  powers, 

134 


AMONG  THE  MENNONITES       135 

though  it  is  doubtful  if  any  other  actress  in  the 
country  could  have  triumphed  in  it,  except  possibly 
May  Irwin,  who,  of  course,  would  have  played  it 
quite  differently.  What,  however,  is  a  slight  de- 
mand on  Mrs.  Fiske's  powers  may  be  a  fatal  drain 
on  many  another's.  The  first,  and  the  last,  impres- 
sion one  takes  away  from  "Erstwhile  Susan,"  her 
new  play,  is  the  impression  of  mastership.  Stronger 
than  any  impression  of  the  story,  any  impression  of 
the  character  Mrs.  Fiske  plays,  is  this  sense  of  a 
personality  vibrant  with  vitality,  of  a  mind  marvel- 
ously  alert,  of  a  voice  trained  to  every  shade  of  feel- 
ing and  expression,  of  a  technical  mastery  of  all  the 
tricks  of  the  trade  which  enables  this  player  to  pick 
up  a  part,  a  play,  and  carry  it  smilingly  off  on  her 
little  shrugging  shoulders.  The  players  who  give  us 
this  sense  in  the  theater  now  are  so  few,  their  appear- 
ance so  infrequent,  and,  moreover,  we  have  been  so 
satiated  of  late  with  the  "silent  drama,"  that  Mrs. 
Fiske  swept  back,  after  three  years  of  absence,  like 
a  cleansing  wind,  and  the  grateful  audience  on  that 
opening  night  simply  rose  to  her  joyously  and  un- 
critically, and  actually  cheered.  It  was  very  much 
as  if  a  crowd  of  music  lovers  who  had  for  years 
heard  nothing  but  ragtime  ditties  on  a  phonograph 
were  suddenly  face  to  face  with  Melba  in  her  prime. 


136  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

The  play  Mrs.  Fiske  has  elected  to  reappear  in  is 
a  curious  little  concoction,  made  by  Marian  de  Forest 
from  a  novel  of  Pennsylvania  Dutch  life  by  Helen 
Martin,  called  "Barnabetta."  The  Pennsylvania 
Dutch  are  comparatively  virgin  material  for  the 
American  dramatist,  and  doubtless  a  folk  comedy 
as  quaint  as  "Hobson's  Choice"  could  have  been 
made  about  them.  We  are  told  that  it  was  to  be 
found  in  the  novel.  But  either  the  dramatist  or 
Mrs.  Fiske  has  elected  to  follow  another  course.  In- 
stead of  writing  in  a  vein  of  folk  comedy,  the  drama- 
tist has  written  in  a  vein  of  burlesque,  gentle  bur- 
lesque which  preserves  character  outlines,  to  be  sure, 
but  which  is  burlesque,  none  the  less.  In  other 
words,  the  play  is  not  written  in  the  key  of  the 
modern  Manchester  school  or  Irish  school,  but  rather 
in  the  key  of  the  American  character  comedies  of  an 
earlier  day.  This  would  be  a  great  pity  if  anybody 
but  Mrs.  Fiske  were  the  star.  As  it  is,  however,  we 
are  inclined  to  think  it  was  the  wise  course.  Mrs. 
Fiske  was  out  for  a  romp,  and  when  she  is  out  for 
a  romp  and  has  the  license  a  touch  of  burlesque  gives 
her  (as  in  "Mrs.  Bumpstead-Leigh"),  there  is  no 
living  player  who  can  furnish  such  delightful,  such 
side-splitting  entertainment.  So  "Erstwhile  Susan" 
is  dashed  with  American  caricature,  it  is  reminiscent 


AMONG  THE  MENNONITES       137 

of  the  Florences,  it  has  a  primitive  native  tang. 

The  part  Mrs.  Fiske  plays  is  that  of  an  elocution- 
ist from  Iowa,  a  quaint  creature  who  lectures  on 
woman's  rights,  bursts  out  into  frequent  quotations 
from  Shakespeare  and  other  poets,  dresses  like  a 
freak  and  has,  in  short,  a  somewhat  ridiculous  self- 
made  "culture."  It  is  ridiculous,  but  it  is  touching, 
too.  The  woman's  heart  is  so  good,  her  ways  so 
brisk,  her  mind  so  alert,  her  sympathies  so  warm. 
Her  sympathies  are  so  warm,  in  fact,  that  she  an- 
swers a  matrimonial  advertisement,  and  comes  to 
Reinhartz,  Pa.,  to  marry  a  Pennsylvania  Dutchman 
who  has  killed  two  wives  already  with  overwork, 
solely  that  she  may  mother  his  poor,  overworked 
daughter  Barnabetta,  and  incidentally  bring  the  up- 
lift to  the  other  down-trodden  females  of  this  com- 
munity. 

Mrs.  Fiske  enters  on  the  scene  after  the  character 
of  Barnaby  Dreary,  the  Dutchman,  is  established, 
and  we  have  seen  the  slavery  of  his  drudge  of  a 
daughter,  and  the  masculine  selfishness  of  his  two 
lunking  sons.  The  posture  of  circumstances  may  be 
far  fetched — who  cares?  It  gets  Mrs.  Fiske  into 
this  household,  and  any  reader  with  a  spark  of  imag- 
ination can  gather  the  fun  which  ensues  as  she  pro- 
ceeds on  her  taming  and  uplifting  process.  It  is  a 


138  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

performance  of  extraordinary  comic  brilliance,  done 
in  bold,  strong  outline,  and  its  appeal  is  heightened 
by  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Fiske  has  put  opposite  her,  in 
the  character  of  Barnaby  Dreary,  John  Cope,  an 
accomplished  and  forceful  actor.  She  is  one  of  those 
wise  players  who  knows  that  a  performance  does  not 
really  shine  by  contrast,  in  a  poor  cast,  but  by  com- 
petition, in  a  good  cast.  The  climax  of  fun  is 
reached  at  the  curtain  of  the  second  act,  when  Bar- 
naby gets  a  whip  to  beat  poor  Barnabetta,  and  Mrs. 
Fiske,  to  his  utter  amazement,  snatches  it  from  him, 
throws  it  through  the  window,  and  then  hurls  at  his 
head  these  astounding  words — "You  damn  Dutch- 
man!" 

Mrs.  Fiske  is  too  fine  an  actress  not  to  create  a 
real  character  out  of  the  Iowa  elocutionist.  She  is 
consistent,  and  she  brings  out  with  consummate  ease, 
when  necessary,  the  lurking  woman's  tenderness. 
But  the  part,  like  the  play,  is  none  the  less  exagger- 
ated, delicately  burlesqued.  It  is  a  sort  of  comic 
bravura,  and  executed  with  all  the  brilliance  of  a 
Melba  singing  trills,  a  Kreisler  with  his  magic  bow. 
The  lovers  of  acting  in  America — and  the  movies 
have  not  destroyed  them  all — will  flock  to  this  per- 
formance, and  they  will  be  richly  repaid. 


SECTION  II 
FOREIGN  PLAYS 


A  LITTLE  SIDE-STREET  IN  ARCADY 

"Pomander  Walk"  —  Wallaces  Theater, 
December  20, 


A.  B.  Walkley  said  of  "Quality  Street,"  eight 
years  ago,  "it  makes  us,  like  St.  Augustine  in  his 
youth,  in  love  with  love.  It  has  laid  us  up  in  laven- 
der." In  much  the  same  words  might  the  critic 
write  to-day  of  "Pomander  Walk,"  by  Louis  N. 
Parker,  now  visible  at  Wallack's  Theater  in  New 
York.  That  play,  too,  is  of  the  period  and  the  per- 
suasion of  Jane  Austen.  It  is  King  George's  Eng- 
land preserved  in  lavender  and  rose  leaves  for  a  cen- 
tury. 

Not,  of  course,  that  we  quite  agree  that  either  "Po- 
mander Walk"  or  "Quality  Street"  makes  us  in  love 
with  love  exactly  after  the  manner  of  St.  Augustine 
in  his  youth!  The  search  for  literary  illustrations 
to  adorn  one's  criticisms  sometimes  leads  the  critic 
into  unfortunate  suggestion.  Nor  can  we  quite 
truthfully  say  that  "Pomander  Walk"  has  laid  us 
away  in  lavender.  Lavender  there  is,  but  mingled 

141 


142  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

with  its  odor  is  the  scent  of  the  old  Admiral  Sir 
Peter's  good  black  'baccy.  We  trust  the  ladies  will 
not  object;  indeed,  we  fancy  that  a  whiff  of  the  mas- 
culine is  not  amiss  in  Arcady.  But,  like  "Quality 
Street,"  "Pomander  Walk"  puts  forth  the  spell  of 
an  old-world  charm,  the  romance  of  a  vanished  day; 
like  Mr.  Barrie's  work,  it  breathes  the  charity  and 
simplicity  and  mellow,  merry  sympathy  of  a  sweet- 
souled  author;  like  the  old  three-decker  in  Kipling's 
poem,  it's  "taking  tired  people  to  the  islands  of  the 
blest." 

Yet  Mr.  Parker's  work  is  strangely  deficient  in 
what  the  scholastic  gentlemen  who  discover  the  laws 
of  the  drama  and  embalm  them  in  books  would  tell 
us  are  the  essentials  of  a  good  play.  It  has  the 
slightest  of  plots.  The  curtains  do  not  descend  upon 
climaxes  of  the  action.  There  are  no  climaxes  in 
the  action.  It  is  as  quiet  in  movement  as  the  works 
of  Jane  Austen  herself,  and,  though  it  does  develop 
skillfully  and  surely  its  little  thread  of  story,  it  con- 
quers not  by  that,  but  by  its  static  qualities  of  charm 
and  sympathy.  It  conquers  because,  in  an  exquisite 
pictorial  setting,  it  shows  us  a  group  of  charming, 
old-worldly  people,  lets  us  hear  their  simple  talk, 
look  into  their  simple  breasts,  and,  ultimately,  into 


LITTLE  SIDE-STREET  IN  ARCADY       143 

the  tender,  simple  heart  of  Louis  N.  Parker.  Before 
such  a  revelation  the  relative  importance  of  "the 
well-made  play"  shrinks  to  insignificance.  Charm 
may  cheerfully  break  all  rules.  Nothing  happens 
in  "Pomander  Walk" — yet  everything  happens. 
Men  and  women  love  and  laugh  and  are  happy. 
The  glow  arises  of  romance.  Life  is  sweeter  for  the 
picture.  The  stage  becomes  more  endeared  to  us 
for  the  memory  of  this  play.  We  hail  it  as  the 
most  important  contribution  of  the  season. 

Pomander  Walk  (the  very  name  is  fragrant!)  is, 
according  to  the  programme,  "Out  Chiswick  way, 
halfway  to  Fairyland."  It  comprises  a  little  block 
of  five  houses  in  the  pretty  Georgian  style,  facing  on 
a  tree-shaded  walk  and  flanked  by  the  river.  Be- 
yond the  river  you  see  the  English  fields.  Little 
wrought-iron  grills  fence  off  each  tiny  garden  plot 
before  the  houses.  Ivy  clambers  over  the  doors. 
The  period  is  1805;  the  costumes  those  of  the  Em- 
pire. The  first  house  is  inhabited  by  the  Admiral 
Sir  Peter  Antrobus,  who  lost  an  eye  with  Nelson. 
He  is  a  bluff,  peppery,  tender,  lovable  old  chap,  who 
has  great  trouble  suppressing  his  nautical  vocabulary 
in  the  presence  of  ladies.  He  has  his  own  ideas  of 
humor.  When  he  wishes  to  cheer  some  one  up  he 


144  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

says :  "Let  me  tell  you  something  funny — how  I  lost 
my  eye!"  He  is  pursued  by  the  Widow  Pamela 
Poskett,  who  lives  next  door  with  her  cat. 

In  the  third  house  live  the  Misses  Ruth  and  Bar- 
bara Pennymint,  with  Barbara's  parrot,  Samuel 
Johnson — "named  after  the  great  lexicographer,  you 
know" — and  their  lodger,  a  young  violinist,  who  is 
too  shy  to  tell  Barbara  that  he  loves  her.  In  the 
fourth  house  lives  a  pompous,  Pickwickian  person, 
Jerome  Brooke-Hoskyn,  Esq.,  with  his  family  and 
a  lodger.  Now,  Brooke-Hoskyn  has  added  the 
"Brooke."  In  reality  he  is  a  retired  butler.  His 
fine  airs  and  pompous  assumption  of  acquaintance 
with  noble  gentlemen  are  a  bluff  to  dazzle  the 
simple  souls  of  Pomander  Walk.  Yet,  for  the  life 
of  you,  you  can't  wish  that  he  be  found  out;  you 
rejoice  when  his  secret  is  kept.  He  adds  a  broad, 
sturdy  touch  of  Dickens  to  the  Jane  Austen  atmos- 
phere of  the  piece. 

In  the  last  house  dwells  a  widow,  Mme.  Lucie  La- 
chesnais,  and  her  lovely  daughter  Marjolaine.  Nor 
must  we  forget  the  Eyesore,  a  ragged  intruder  who 
continually  sits  fishing  on  the  river  bank  and  never 
lands  a  fish. 

And  the  story?  The  play  progresses  with  simple, 
pleasant,  human  talk,  tinged  with  merriment,  and 


LITTLE  SIDE-STREET  IN  ARCADY       145 

not,  as  in  "Quality  Street,"  attempting  to  reproduce 
the  stilted  rhetoric  of  the  period.  Perhaps  for  such 
literary  subtlety  Mr.  Parker  does  not  feel  himself 
fitted.  We  see  Marjolaine  fall  into  the  wonder  of 
first  love  with  young  Lieutenant  John  Sayle,  R.  N., 
who  comes  to  visit  his  old  commander,  the  Admiral, 
and  him  into  the  wonder  of  love  for  her.  We  learn 
how  his  titled  father  once  loved  Marjolaine's  mother, 
leaving  her  for  a  rich  marriage  at  his  father's  desire, 
just  as  he  now  desires  young  Jack  to  do.  We  see 
the  young  lovers  triumph  gayly  over  parental  oppo- 
sition and  we  watch  their  parents  reunited  in  the 
autumn  of  their  days.  We  learn  how  Barbara 
catches  her  shy  fiddler  by  the  aid  of  Samuel  John- 
son, the  loquacious.  We  see  the  old  Admiral  forced 
at  last  to  strike  his  colors  before  the  artillery  of  the 
Widow  Poskett.  We  see  Brooke-Hoskyn  escape 
detection.  And  as  the  moon  rises  and  the  lamp- 
lighter puts  out  the  lamps  along  Pomander  Walk, 
leaving  the  lovers,  old  and  young,  grouped  in  its 
silvery  rays,  we  see  the  Eyesore  land  a  perch  at  last 
— a  great,  fat  perch  with  shining  scales. 

Of  course,  for  such  a  play  as  this,  fine  acting  is 
required,  and  fine  stage  management.  It  has  re- 
ceived both.  The  author  himself  was  the  stage 
manager,  and  the  choice  of  the  company  was  left  to 


146  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

him.  George  Giddens,  a  splendid  actor  of  the  "old 
school,"  who  has  played  Tony  Lumpkin  in  America 
in  years  past,  plays  the  Admiral  Sir  Peter,  and  shows 
us  how  ripeness  and  training  may  raise  an  imper- 
sonation into  rounded  life.  The  author's  daugh- 
ter, Miss  Dorothy  Parker,  on  the  other  hand,  makes 
her  very  first  stage  appearance  as  Marjolaine,  and 
shows  us  how  natural  talent  and  unspoiled  naivete 
may  contribute  to  a  picture  of  youth  and  innocence. 
All  the  other  players  are  good  and  enter  with  willing 
understanding  into  the  idyllic  mood  of  the  comedy. 
You  feel  it  is  no  perfunctory  task  they  are  perform- 
ing. In  a  play  that  breathes  the  spirit  of  love,  they 
act  with  loving  care. 

And  some  of  us  doubly  rejoice  that  the  play  is 
presented  at  Wallack's  Theater.  In  the  raw  new- 
ness of  Broadway,  Wallack's  remains  a  landmark, 
dingy  perhaps  and  overlarge,  but  haunted  with  mem- 
ories of  the  great  comedian  who  gave  it  its  name, 
linking  us  with  the  past,  with  an  honorable  tradition 
of  dramatic  art.  Among  the  various  elements  which 
must  co-operate  to  create  charm  in  the  playhouse  the 
theater  itself  surely  is  one.  The  playwright  is  es- 
sential, the  manager  with  a  real  love  of  his  business, 
with  something  of  the  artist's  devotion,  the  willing 
and  skillful  actors,  the  stage  director  with  imagina- 


LITTLE  SIDE-STREET  IN  ARCADY      147 

tion,  taste  and  feeling.  But  the  theater,  too,  is 
needed,  where  memories  awake,  as  we  enter  the  por- 
tal, of  the  vanished  charm  of  other  days,  where  our 
affection  is  roused  and  our  fancies  stirred  in  antici- 
pation. 

All  these  elements  have  been  combined  in  the 
production  of  "Pomander  Walk."  To  old  theater- 
goers it  can  bring  no  sighs  for  "the  days  that  are 
no  more,"  for  it  breathes  their  very  essence.  For 
young  theater-goers  it  can  only  make  the  present 
more  delightful  and  the  future  more  bright,  for  by 
making  us  in  love  with  love,  with  life,  it  makes  us 
thereby  in  love  with  the  theater.  It  brings  to  the 
playhouse  in  New  York  what  that  playhouse  so 
sorely  needs,  glamour  and  sweetness  and  charm. 


A  LITTLE  FLYER  IN  JOY 

"Hindle  Wakes,"  Maxine  Elliott's  Theater,  Dec. 
p,  1912 

"Hindle  Wakes"  was  for  some  weeks  visible  at 
Maxine  Elliott's  Theater — visible  if  not  visited.  It 
then  departed  to  tour  the  country.  This  drama,  by 
Stanley  Houghton,  is  one  of  the  genre  productions  of 
Miss  Horniman's  Manchester  Theater,  and  is  acted 
by  players  from  her  company,  rehearsed  by  her 
stage  manager.  It  offers,  therefore,  a  very  fair  op- 
portunity to  estimate  something  of  the  results  Miss 
Horniman  is  achieving  in  the  English  mill  city  of 
Manchester,  at  first  blush  a  rather  sooty  cradle,  one 
would  say,  for  the  arts. 

We  have  nothing  like  Miss  Horniman's  repertory 
theater  in  America.  Its  nearest  counterpart  with 
which  we  are  familiar  is  the  Abbey  Theater  of  Dub- 
lin; but,  of  course,  there  is  less  national  spirit  to  the 
Manchester  venture.  Miss  Horniman  is  not  adver- 
tising an  English  revival,  but  simply  trying  to  de- 
velop a  repertory  company  in  her  city,  and  to 

148 


A  LITTLE  FLYER  IN  JOY          149 

encourage  local  playwrights.  If  somebody  should 
start  a  repertory  theater  in  Pittsburgh,  and  local 
playwrights  there  should  have  produced  in  it  dramas 
about  the  Pennsylvania  Dutch  and  life  in  the  oil 
well  and  coal  districts,  we  should  have  a  fair  an- 
alogy. 

"Hindle  Wakes"  is  a  tale  of  life  among  the  weav- 
ers of  Hindle,  a  Lancashire  town,  and  it  is  written 
in  Lancashire  idiom,  and  spoken  in  Lancashire  dia- 
lect. It  is  acted  by  a  company  who  seem  in  some 
cases  not  very  remotely  removed  from  talented 
amateurs,  with  the  simplicity  of  gesture  and  move- 
ment, the  emphasis  on  text,  characteristic  of  the 
Irish  players  from  Dublin.  Unfortunately,  the 
text  is  much  less  attractive  in  sound  than  the  dia- 
logue of  Yeats  and  Synge.  The  stage  management, 
too,  is  stiffer  and  more  conventional. 

But  that  is  far  less  important  than  the  fact  that 
the  play  has  been  written  and  produced  at  all.  It 
does  not  happen  to  be  so  large  and  gripping  a  play 
as  "Rutherford  and  Son,"  which  is  a  piece  of  realism 
about  a  similar  district  of  England,  nor  is  it  nearly 
so  well  acted  as  is  "Rutherford  and  Son"  by  Norman 
McKinnel  and  his  London  professionals.  But,  none 
the  less,  "Hindle  Wakes"  has  all  the  earmarks  of 
local  authenticity,  its  very  stiffness  of  presentation 


150  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

but  betokening  its  authentic  local  origin  the  more. 
What  does  that  mean?  It  means  that  the  drama  is 
alive  in  Manchester.  It  means  that  Manchester  is 
not  simply  sitting  back  and  taking  what  second  com- 
pany crumbs  are  dropped  now  and  again  from  the 
London  table,  but  is  able  to  write  and  produce 
dramas  of  its  own,  dramas  good  enough  to  send  up  to 
London,  and  even  across  the  pond  to  New  York. 
It  means  that  the  drama  in  Manchester,  like  the 
tariff,  is  a  local  issue. 

Think  if  that  were  the  case  in  the  United  States ! 
Think  of  the  cities  we  have,  far  from  New  York, 
which  are  at  present  utterly  dependent  on  New  York 
for  their  dramatic  fare,  and  which  have  a  rich  local 
mine  of  material  about  them  at  present  quite  un- 
worked  either  because  nobody  has  been  developed  to 
work  it,  or  because  it  would  not  be  palatable — sup- 
posedly— on  Broadway!  The  real  New  England 
play,  for  example,  has  never  been  written.  James 
A.  Herne  scratched  the  surface  in  "Shore  Acres,"  but 
the  "Way  Down  East"  sort  of  by-gosh  drama  is  no 
more  New  England  realism  than  it  is  Chinese. 
Where  is  the  Pittsburgh  play?  Why  isn't  Meredith 
Nicholson  writing  the  racy,  homely  comedy  and  ro- 
mance of  his  beloved  Indianapolis  and  its  surround- 
ing country,  for  a  repertory  theater  there,  where  the 


A  LITTLE  FLYER  IN  JOY          151 

audiences  would  understand*?  Surely  there  is  a 
drama  in  Charleston,  S.  C. !  We  could  multiply 
endlessly  the  opportunities. 

But,  as  matters  stand,  the  dramatist  must  be  able 
to  come  up  to  Broadway  or  Chicago  (or  now  and 
again,  at  most,  Boston  and  Los  Angeles),  with  his 
wares,  and  he  must  be  able  to  deliver  goods  which 
will  "get  across"  on  Broadway.  Is  it  any  wonder 
there  is  no  authentic  realism  in  our  American  genre 
plays?  What,  for  instance,  did  Broadway  know,  or 
care,  about  the  G.  A.  R.  when  Warfield  produced 
"The  Grand  Army  Man'"?  You  have  to  go  back 
into  what  Meredith  Nicholson  loves  to  call  provin- 
cial America  to  find  a  general  love  for  and  under- 
standing of  the  G.  A.  R.  Of  course,  George  Ade's 
"College  Widow"  was  a  real  genre  comedy,  even  if 
exaggerated.  His  sense  of  fun  was  great  enough  to 
turn  the  trick.  But  he  offers  only  the  traditional 
proof  of  an  exception.  The  fact  remains  that  the 
theater  is  not  a  live  issue  in  America,  not  a  local 
issue,  outside  of  two  or  three  of  our  largest  cities. 
Because  this  always  has  been  so  is  no  reason  why  it 
always  should  be  so — as  we  seem  to  suppose.  It  al- 
ways had  been  so  in  Manchester  till  Miss  Horniman 
came  along. 

What  will  be  the  first  American  city  to  wake  up? 


152  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

They  all  have  stock  companies  playing  two  and  three 
year  old  Broadway  successes  in  the  traditional  stock 
manner.  There  isn't  a  real  repertory  theater  in  the 
whole  land,  nor  half  a  dozen  stock  managers  who 
ever  produce  a  new  play  unless  some  New  York 
manager  pays  them  to  do  it.  None  of  our  stock  com- 
panies has  so  much  as  dreamed  of  developing  local 
playwrights.  Isn't  it  stupid?  Isn't  it,  when  you 
come  to  think  the  matter  over,  almost  ridiculous? 
The  whole  nation  needs  a  new  declaration  of  theat- 
rical independence. 

But  now  about  "Hindle  Wakes."  The  charm  of 
the  play — for  it  has  a  distinct  charm  to  all  who 
possess  sufficient  imagination  to  enjoy  a  picture  of 
a  life  foreign  to  their  own — resides  in  the  quiet  and 
seemingly  quite  unexaggerated  and  authentic  de- 
piction of  the  ideals  and  manners  and  habits  of  the 
Lancashire  weavers.  The  story  is  extremely  simple. 
Christopher  Hawthorn  is  an  old  weaver,  who  is  still 
a  weaver,  with  a  full-blooded  and  high-spirited 
daughter,  Fanny,  who  is,  like  her  father,  a  worker 
in  the  mills.  But  Christopher's  old  boyhood  friend, 
Nathaniel  Jeffcote,  has  risen  from  the  loom  to  be  the 
owner  of  the  mill,  and  his  boy  Alan  is  thus  in  a  social 
class  above  Fanny.  We  see  here  what  money  does 
for  the  second  generation. 


A  LITTLE  FLYER  IN  JOY          153 

Well,  during  bank  holiday — when  Hindle  holds 
its  "wakes,"  Fanny  goes  off  for  a  week-end  holiday, 
and  so  does  Alan.  They  meet,  and  spend  the  holi- 
days together.  The  fact  is  discovered  by  Fanny's 
parents.  To  their  simple  code,  the  only  possible 
thing  now  is  to  have  Alan  marry  Fanny. 

Christopher  goes  up  to  the  house  of  his  old  friend 
Nathaniel  and  puts  the  case  to  that  testy,  canny,  self- 
willed,  but  honest  and  fair-minded  man.  He  is 
enraged,  but  agrees  that  Alan  must  marry  Fanny, 
even  though  it  means  breaking  off  a  match  with  an- 
other girl,  daughter  of  a  second  mill  owner,  which 
would  unite  the  two  properties. 

Well,  the  subject  is  thrashed  out  from  all  sides, 
and  we  get  an  insight  into  these  people's  lives  in  the 
process — and  then  Fanny  has  her  say.  It's  about 
time,  she  thinks!  She  won't  marry  Alan.  She 
doesn't  want  Alan.  She  doesn't  care  anything  about 
Alan.  She  was  a  passing  fancy  with  him,  just  a 
lark,  was  she?  Men  are  built  that  way,  are  they*? 
Well,  he  was  just  a  passing  fancy,  a  lark,  with  her, 
too!  Women  can  be  built  that  way,  also!  When 
she  marries  she  proposes  to  get  a  man,  she  does,  and 
of  her  own  picking. 

And  Fanny  has  her  way.  We  must  admit  that 
she  has  the  audience's  sympathy.  It  certainly 


154  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

wasn't  going  to  mend  matters  to  marry  her  off  to 
Alan,  and  somehow  there  was  a  force  of  character 
in  the  girl  as  played  by  Miss  Emilie  Polini  which 
made  you  sure  she  would  come  out  all  right  after 
this  little  flyer  in  joy.  Naturally,  it  was  all  some- 
thing of  a  snap  for  Alan,  as  his  fiancee  forgave  him. 
But  maybe  that  is  realistic,  too.  The  fiancee  wasn't 
a  new  woman,  like  Fanny,  and  she  followed  the  easy 
code  of  old-fashioned  forgiveness. 

The  theme  of  the  play  is  not  very  new,  then,  nor 
perhaps  important,  in  spite  of  the  supposition  in 
some  quarters  that  Fanny's  outburst  of  belated  self- 
respect  is  a  great  blow  for  Feminism.  What  is  im- 
portant is  the  faithful,  illuminating  disclosures  of  a 
race  of  people,  a  state  of  society,  in  a  corner  of  Eng- 
land— of  their  speech,  their  habits,  their  ideals.  Any 
such  faithful  disclosure  is  always  important  and  of 
interest.  This  one  is  doubly  so,  because  it  was  made 
possible  by  the  Manchester  repertory  theater,  and 
so  shows  us  that  similar  disclosures  might  be  made 
in  the  United  States,  about  the  various  interesting 
subdivisions  of  our  national  society. 


AN  INTIMATE  THEATER  AND  AN 

UNUSUAL  PLAY 

"The  Pigeon" — Little  Theater,  March  //,  1912 

One  of  the  most  interesting,  and  we  are  inclined 
to  think  one  of  the  most  important,  theatrical  events 
of  the  winter  is  the  launching  of  Winthrop  Ames' 
Little  Theater.  The  opening  attraction  was  Gals- 
worthy's new  play,  "The  Pigeon,"  a  fascinating 
drama  almost  flawlessly  acted.  Mr.  Ames  has  be- 
gun his  novel  work  with  fortune  smiling,  and  he  has 
deserved  his  success  and  our  gratitude. 

The  Little  Theater  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
play  houses  in  America.  It  is  situated  on  Forty- 
fourth  street,  just  west  of  Long  Acre  Square.  Two 
old  houses  have  given  way  to  it.  The  front  is  no 
higher  than  the  old  houses,  but  instead  of  remaining 
brown  stone,  it  is  colonial  brick,  with  a  simple  colo- 
nial entrance  in  white,  and  old-fashioned  wooden 
window  shutters.  The  wooden  sign  swings  out  over 
the  sidewalk  like  the  sign  of  an  ancient  inn.  The 
interior  is  also  colonial,  or  more  properly  Georgian, 

i55 


156  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

but  very  rich.  The  auditorium  has  no  balconies, 
and  seats  but  300  people,  in  widely  spaced,  comfort- 
able chairs.  There  are  no  boxes.  The  walls  are 
paneled  half  way  up  with  quartered  oak,  and  oak 
pilasters  continue  to  the  ceiling,  framing  tapestries. 
The  ceiling  is  flat,  white  and  embossed  with  a  colo- 
nial wreath  design  in  very  low  relief.  The  chande- 
liers are,  of  course,  the  old  cut  glass  pendant  type. 
The  stage  opening  is  small.  The  lobbies  are,  like 
the  auditorium,  intimate  rooms,  and  downstairs  is 
a  coffee-room,  where  refreshments  are  served  gratis 
between  acts,  quite  like  afternoon  tea.  The  whole 
atmosphere  is  that  of  social  intimacy,  exquisite  taste, 
quiet  refinement,  good  breeding.  There  is  no  the- 
ater like  it  in  size  and  style,  and  only  the  Maxine 
Elliott  Theater  can  even  compare  with  it  in  charm. 

In  such  a  house,  of  course,  the  plays  must  have 
an  intimate  appeal,  and  they  ought,  as  well,  to  have 
distinct  quality.  It  is  a  theater  for  the  presentation 
of  exceptional  drama,  drama  that  of  necessity  is  not 
always  well  fitted  to  meet  the  diverse  demands  of 
the  larger  playhouses.  Such  drama  exists.  A 
theater  to  welcome  it  ought  to  exist.  Mr.  Ames  has 
provided  such  a  theater  and  provided  it  with  prodigal 
hand. 

"The  Pigeon,"  his  first  bill,  is  an  exceptional  play, 


AN  INTIMATE  THEATER  157 

a  fascinating,  thoughtful,  human  play  (though  full 
of  delightful  comedy),  and  it  is  acted  by  an  excep- 
tional company,  drilled  into  a  flawless  ensemble. 

Mr.  Ames  has  retained  as  stage  director  George 
Foster  Platt,  who  was  his  director  at  the  New 
Theater,  a  man  who  works  at  his  best  in  an  intimate 
auditorium,  and  he  has  also  retained  Wilfrid  North, 
his  assistant  stage  director  at  the  New  Theater. 
Further,  he  still  has  in  his  company  Miss  Matthison 
(though  she  is  not  in  "The  Pigeon"),  Miss  Pamela 
Gaythorne  and  several  minor  players.  The  new 
members  of  his  staff,  however,  are  not  players  who 
have  been  spoiled  by  the  star  system,  and  they  have 
worked  at  the  very  start  into  the  spirit  of  ensemble 
playing.  Among  them  are  Russ  Whytal,  Frank 
Reicher  and  Sidney  Valentine,  three  fine  actors,  who, 
in  "The  Pigeon,"  perform  in  a  way  to  restore  our 
sometimes  tottering  faith  in  latter-day  histrionic  art. 
Mr.  Ames,  obviously,  gained  experience  at  the  New 
Theater.  He  also  achieved  the  nucleus  of  an  or- 
ganization, which  he  has  brought  over  with  him,  and 
so  starts  with  a  considerable  advantage. 

^The  Pigeon"  is  now  available  in  book  form. 
We  need  not,  therefore,  describe  it  minutely,  for 
most  people  who  are  interested  in  the  finer  things  in 
the  modern  theater  will  undoubtedly  procure  it. 


158  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Mr.  Galsworthy  describes  it  as  a  fantasy.  It  is  not, 
however,  fantastic.  Evidently  Galsworthy's  idea 
of  being  fantastic  is  merely  to  smile  while  talking 
tenderly  and  touchingly  about  sad  or  serious  things. 
That  is  characteristic  of  an  author  who  comes  so 
modestly  to  New  York  to  see  his  play  that  nobody 
knew  he  was  coming  till  the  steamer  arrived,  and 
who  takes  a  walk  in  Central  Park  while  his  play 
is  being  produced.  Mr.  Galsworthy  inevitably 
reminds  one  of  Arnold  Bennett — he's  so  differ- 
ent! 

Superficially,  and  only  superficially,  "The  Pigeon" 
resembles  "Passers-by."  In  each  play  waifs  of  the 
London  streets  come  into  the  action.  But  there  the 
similarity  ceases.  In  "Passers-by"  the  real  inter- 
est was  not  in  the  waifs,  but  in  the  sentimental  story 
of  the  young  London  bachelor  who  invited  them  in. 
"The  Pigeon,"  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  sentimental 
story.  In  a  way,  it  is  almost  as  neuter  as  "Strife." 
Its  interest  lies  in  the  problem  of  the  waifs  them- 
selves, and  its  message,  beautifully  and  tenderly 
expressed  by  the  action,  is  simply  that  to  help  such 
folk  at  all  effectively  the  essential  thing  is  not  a 
public  court  nor  an  organized  charity  nor  a  soup 
kitchen,  but  rather  love  and  understanding.  The 
Pigeon  of  the  title  is  an  old  artist  who  cannot  help 


AN  INTIMATE  THEATER          159 

loving  these  human  wrecks,  and  who  is  called  a  pig- 
eon because  they  pluck  him. 

His  daughter  calls  them  "rotters."  All  through 
the  play  the  poor  girl  makes  determined  effort  to 
keep  her  father  from  bringing  these  waifs  into  his 
studio.  Finally,  she  makes  him  move  to  a  new 
studio,  up  seven  flights,  without  a  "lift,"  in  order  to 
avoid  both  the  "rotters,"  and  the  philanthropic  vicar, 
and  the  professor  with  social  theories,  and  the  police 
magistrate  who  believes  in  the  reformatory  value  of 
the  workhouse.  But,  at  the  end,  the  poor  old  artist 
gives  his  new  address  to  all  of  them.  "It's  stronger 
than  me,"  he  wails.  It  is  his  dissipation.  His  love 
for  them  is  his  weakness.  But  it  is  also  his  strength. 
It  is  he  alone  who  gets  to  the  waifs  at  all.  The  play 
is  not  a  plea  for  a  social  theory.  It  is  a  plea  for  love 
and  sympathy  and  understanding. 

Russ  Whytal  is  a  sweet,  benignant  figure  as  the 
old  artist,  who,  the  tramp  says,  can  hardly  be  a 
Christian,  because  he  has  such  a  kind  face.  The 
three  waifs  are  a  London  flower  girl,  who  later  goes 
on  the  streets,  played  touchingly  by  Parmela  Gay- 
thorne,  Timson,  a  tipsy  old  cabbie,  played  with  irre- 
sistible humor  by  Sidney  Valentine,  and  Ferrand,  a 
tramp  (a  character  out  of  one  of  the  author's  earlier 
books),  played  by  Frank  Reicher.  Ferrand  is  no 


160  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

ordinary  vagabond  of  the  comic  papers.  He  is  a 
cosmopolitan  vagabond,  French  by  blood,  full  of 
quaint,  racy  idiom,  with  a  strong  vein  of  philosophy 
— a  truly  extraordinary  man.  He  is  a  man  who 
would  have  been  a  considerable  success  in  the  world 
if  he  had  been  differently  balanced,  if  he  had  been 
endowed  with  concentration  instead  of  the  wander- 
lust. The  type  is  not  unknown.  It  is  not  even  rare 
(though  people  who  have  had  no  experience  of  the 
underworld  will  not  believe  this).  But  no  doubt 
it  is  more  common  in  Europe  than  America,  and 
for  that  reason  Frank  Reicher's  German  blood  pos- 
sibly enabled  him  to  understand  the  character  better. 
He  plays  it,  certainly,  with  wonderful  feeling.  All 
the  humor,  all  the  philosophy,  all  the  pathetic  futil- 
ity of  this  strange  being  are  in  his  impersonation. 
The  character  goes  beyond  the  confines  of  the  stage. 
He  is  a  real  man.  You  wander  with  him  over  the 
globe,  see  the  world  from  his  point  of  view,  and 
realize  at  last  the  grim  futility  of  institutional  char- 
ity to  catch  and  tame  such  a  wild  bird,  to  reform  him 
by  giving  him  a  bath. 

"But,"  he  cries  to  the  artist,  "are  you  really  Eng- 
lish? You  treat  me  like  a  brother!" 

"Ah,  Monsieur,"  he  says  again,  "I  am  loafer, 
waster — what  you  like — for  all  that  [bitterly]  pov- 


AN  INTIMATE  THEATER  161 

erty  is  my  only  crime.  If  I  were  rich,  should  I  not 
be  simply  veree  original,  'ighly  respected,  with  soul 
above  commerce,  traveling  to  see  the  world?  And 
that  young  girl,  would  she  not  be  'that  charming 
ladee,'  'veree  chic,  you  know!'  And  the  old  Tims, 
good,  old-fashioned  gentleman,  drinking  his  liquor 
well.  Eh,  bien! — what  are  we  now1?  Dark  beasts, 
despised  by  all.  That  is  life,  Monsieur." 

Strange,  disquieting  words,  these,  when  you  come 
to  think  of  them — disquieting  with  the  naked  truth ! 

The  poor  little  flower  girl  had  been  taken  after 
act  two,  when  her  young  husband  refused  to  receive 
her  back,  into  an  institution  by  the  vicar.  In  act 
three  she  had  begun  her  life  on  the  streets.  "She 
wanted  the  joy  of  life — she  chose  the  life  of  joy — 
not  quite  the  same  thing!"  says  the  philosophical 
tramp.  She  overhears  some  of  the  tramp's  bitter 
words,  and  tries  to  drown  herself.  But  the  police- 
man, who  admits  she  were  better  off  dead,  saves  her. 
Sobbing  on  the  old  artist's  shoulder,  she  says  the 
people  at  the  institution  where  she  was  placed  looked 
at  her  as  if  they  wanted  her  dead.  "I  couldn't  stop 
there,  you  know." 

"Too  cooped  up,  eh*?"  says  the  artist. 

"Yes.  No  life  at  all,  it  wasn't — not  after  sellin' 
flowers.  I'd  rather  be  doin'  what  I  am !" 


162  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Terrible  words  again! — though  the  audience  is 
prone  to  laugh  at  them. 

Then  she  is  carried  off  to  the  station-house,  to 
be  tried  for  the  crime  of  trying  to  kill  herself,  by  a 
magistrate  who  believes  that  there  is  no  hope  for  her, 
and  she'd  be  much  better  off  dead.  Even  the  vicar 
has  admitted  his  belief  in  the  "lethal  chamber"  as 
her  happiest  resting  place.  The  poor,  simple- 
minded  old  artist  cannot  see  the  logic  in  all  this — 
you  grasp  how  simple-minded  he  is"?  Only  the 
vagabond  rises  to  the  occasion. 

"Do  not  grieve,  Monsieur,"  he  says,  "this  will  give 
her  courage.  There  is  nothing  that  gives  more 
courage  than  to  see  the  irony  of  things." 

The  irony  of  things — that  is  the  play.  Under  its 
wit  (for  it  is  witty)  and  its  comedy  (for  it  is  full 
of  comic  situations),  runs  the  undercurrent  of  irony, 
the  irony  of  our  poor,  feeble  institutions  to  deal  with 
so  individual  and  wild  a  thing  as  the  human  soul. 
The  irony  is  not  lessened  by  the  fact  that  the  only 
person  in  the  play  who  reaches  the  hearts  of  these 
waifs  is  the  poor  pigeon,  whose  love  for  them  is  re- 
garded as  an  amiable  weakness  by  everybody  else. 

Of  course,  there  is  one  great  point  which  Gals- 
worthy has  here  ignored.  There  are  men,  thank 
God,  and  women,  too,  whose  love  is  no  less  than  the 


AN  INTIMATE  THEATER  163 

old  artist's,  who  have  his  weakness,  too,  but  who  have 
in  addition  a  power  of  character  to  inject  into  other 
souls  something  of  their  own  faith  and  strength. 
The  Salvation  Army  understands  this,  and  sends 
men  and  women  among  the  "rotters,"  who  very  often 
cause  a  "new  birth"  in  these  folk,  a  mighty  welling 
up  of  strength  from  subconscious  depths,  a  faith 
which  gives  them  the  joy  of  life  they  crave,  and  the 
steadfastness  they  need.  Galsworthy,  of  course,  is 
absolutely  right  that  this  cannot  be  done  by  insti- 
tutions or  baths,  that  such  souls  can  only  be  reached 
by  personalities  who  love  them  and  who,  above  all, 
sympathetically  understand  them.  But  it  is  not 
true  that  such  souls  are  only  loved  and  understood 
by  men  and  women  in  whom  sympathy  is  a  weakness, 
and  that  the  only  persons  who  really  want  them  to 
live  are  persons  who  do  not  know  how  to  give  them 
something  to  live  for. 

The  present  writer  knows  today  a  business  man  in 
America  who  has  handled  dozens  of  cases  of  men 
and  women  in  worse  plight  than  these  waifs  in  'The 
Pigeon,"  and  made  them  all  good  members  of  so- 
ciety. He  loved  them.  They  knew  it,  and  loved 
and  trusted  him.  He  let  them  pluck  him,  too,  if 
they  wanted  to.  But  very  soon  they  didn't  want  to, 
because  he  inspired  in  each  a  new  conception  of  the 


164  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

joy  of  life.  He  did  not  chain  them.  He  simply 
substituted  for  an  old  motive  a  new  and  better  one. 
In  some  cases  it  took  him  months,  or  even  years. 
But  he  did  it,  and  is  doing  it  every  day.  It  is  this 
constructive  side  of  love  and  sympathy  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy ignores. 

But,  none  the  less,  "The  Pigeon"  touches  not  the 
conventional  stuff  of  the  drama,  but  real  life ;  to  see 
it  is  to  feel  that  you  have  enlarged  your  human  ex- 
perience. It  is  bitter  with  irony,  yet  tender  with 
sympathy,  and  lambent  with  humor.  And  it  is 
here  acted  with  exquisite  and  understanding  art. 
No  season  can  be  called  vain  which  has  given  us 
the  Little  Theater  and  "The  Pigeon." 


BERNSTEIN  AND  BELASCO  AT  THEIR 
BEST 

"The  Secret" — Belasco  Theater,  December  23*  /p/J 

Our  younger  actresses  seem  to  be  growing  ambi- 
tious. Miss  Barrymore  has  apparently  joined  the 
ranks  of  the  serious  artists  now,  and  Miss  Elsie 
Ferguson,  by  her  performance  in  "The  Strange 
iWoman,"  has  proved  that  her  ambition  to  play 
Rosalind  is  not  to  be  taken  lightly.  Miss  Billie 
Burke  has  just  appeared  in  a  serious  drama  by 
Somerset  Maugham.  And,  finally,  Miss  Frances 
Starr  has  essayed  the  most  difficult  role  of  her  career, 
that  of  the  leading  figure  in  Henri  Bernstein's  latest 
play,  "The  Secret,"  beautifully  produced  by  Mr. 
Belasco.  It  is  a  role  almost  totally  devoid  of  the 
traditional  "sympathy,"  for  it  is  that  of  a  cross  be- 
tween lago  and  Hedda  Gabler;  and  it  is  set  in  a  play 
as  remarkable  for  its  absence  of  the  usual  Gallic  sex 
appeal  as  it  is  remarkable  for  its  superb  craftsman- 
ship and  its  suspensive  march.  Probably  it  will  not 
be  popular,  therefore.  It  is  "unpleasant"  without 

165 


166  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

being  salacious,  and  truthful  without  being  "sympa- 
thetic." To  hope  that  it  will  succeed  because  it  is 
a  splendid  play,  splendidly  acted,  is  a  feat  of  op- 
timism the  facts  of  our  theater  hardly  warrant. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  one  of  the  most  important  pro- 
ductions of  the  season,  and  if  it  does  not  succeed  we 
should  count  it  a  double  misfortune,  because  when 
Mr.  Belasco  does  apply  his  genius  as  a  stage  manager 
to  worthy  material  he  should  be  given  every  encour- 
agement. 

The  most  striking  feature  of  the  play,  perhaps,  is 
the  technical  method  of  the  author.  In  the  first  act 
he  shows  us  Gabrielle  Jannelot  and  her  husband  Con- 
stant living  in  a  beautiful  apartment  in  Paris,  a  most 
respectable,  happy  and  likable  couple,  with  several 
good  friends,  one  of  them  being  a  young  widow  (who 
had  been  unhappily  married)  named  Henriette  and 
another  being  a  curious,  shy,  sensitive  little  man 
named  Denis  le  Guern.  The  Jannelots  are  anxious 
to  bring  about  a  match  between  these  two,  and  can 
not  understand  why  Denis  does  not  propose.  This 
is  made  clear  when  Denis  has  an  interview  with  Ga- 
brielle. He  explains  to  her  that  he  has  a  torturing 
imagination,  which  he  knows  would  cause  him  to  be 
very  jealous  of  a  woman  whose  past  he  did  not 
share,  and  therefore  he  has  always  determined  to 


BERNSTEIN  AND  BELASCO         167 

marry  a  young  girl  with  no  past.  Yet,  alas,  he 
has  fallen  in  love  with  Henriette.  Gabrielle  as- 
sures him  that  Henriette  was  never  happy  with  her 
husband,  and  has  had  no  other  affair.  Thus  reas- 
sured, he  determines  to  propose.  Then  we  see 
Gabrielle  warn  her  friend  that  she  should  confess  to 
Denis  a  serious  affair  she  had,  just  after  her  husband's 
death,  with  a  certain  Charlie  Ponta  Tulli,  who,  we 
gather,  was  rather  a  rake,  and  jilted  Henriette. 

Henriette,  however,  does  not  confess.  She  real- 
izes that  if  she  does  Denis  will  not  propose.  No- 
body knows  her  secret  but  herself,  Charlie  and 
Gabrielle,  and  Gabrielle,  her  best  friend,  of  course 
will  not  tell.  She  accepts  Denis.  After  the  happy 
pair  have  departed,  Gabrielle  blurts  out  the  secret 
to  her  husband,  and  with  great  relish  is  telling  him 
the  details  of  her  friend's  love  affair  as  the  first  cur- 
tain descends.  We  begin  to  see  the  claws,  but  we 
cannot  guess  the  motive. 

Act  two  shows  a  house  party,  at  which  the  guests 
are  Gabrielle  and  her  husband,  Henriette  and  Denis, 
now  married,  and  the  mysterious  Charlie.  Of 
course,  his  presence  is  quite  terrible  for  poor  Hen- 
riette, the  more  as  he  takes  a  bitter  pleasure  in  mak- 
ing a  fool  of  her  trusting,  commonplace  little  hus- 
band at  every  turn.  It  seems  at  first  as  if  Charlie's 


i68  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

presence  there  were  an  inevitable  accident,  but  grad- 
ually we  learn  otherwise.  By  a  series  of  truly  won- 
derful scenes — wonderful  in  their  interwrought  tex- 
ture and  their  steady  unfolding  of  surprise  after 
surprise — we  come  to  realize  that  Gabrielle  brought 
Charlie  there,  to  make  her  friend  miserable,  and  if 
possible  to  betray  the  truth  to  her  husband.  We 
learn  that  Charlie  is  not  the  rounder  we  had  sup- 
posed, but  had  been  truly  in  love  with  Henriette,  had 
fully  intended  to  marry  her,  and  had  always  sup- 
posed she  broke  off  with  him  because  she  was  tired 
of  him,  whereas  she  broke  off  because  Gabrielle  had 
intercepted  his  letters,  and  she  had  supposed  he  was 
tired  of  her,  had  regarded  her  only  as  a  mistress  and 
was  abandoning  her.  By  the  time  the  end  of  the 
act  is  reached,  we  see  that  Gabrielle  has  deliberately 
made  a  horrible  mess  of  all  the  lives  about  her,  wan- 
tonly done  all  in  her  power  to  wreck  the  happiness  of 
her  best  friends,  even  of  her  husband,  for  a  break 
between  him  and  his  sister  is  of  her  doing,  also. 

But  still  we  have  no  motive. 

Bernstein,  even  more  here  than  in  "The  Thief," 
saves  his  major  revelation  till  the  end.  It  comes  in 
the  last  act.  Gabrielle  has  done  it  all  because  she 
cannot  stand  seeing  those  around  her  happy,  unless 
she  is  causing  their  happiness.  She  is  an  exagger- 


BERNSTEIN  AND  BELASCO         169 

ated  specimen  of  a  well  known  if  not  common  type, 
exaggerated,  of  course,  to  the  point  where  she  is 
practically  diseased,  but  perhaps  no  less  interesting 
on  that  account.  She  has  made  the  breach  between 
her  husband  and  his  sister  merely  because  she  came 
home  one  day  and  saw  them  sitting  happily  together, 
getting  on  very  nicely  without  her.  She  smashed 
the  love  affair  between  Charlie  and  Henriette  not 
because  Henriette,  being  miserable  and  lonely  after 
her  unhappy  marriage,  had  been  rash  enough  to  be- 
come Charlie's  mistress  until  such  a  time  as  they 
could  marry,  and  so  had  offended  Gabrielle's  moral 
sense,  but  simply  because  Henriette  was  finding  hap- 
piness in  this  relation,  not  of  Gabrielle's  making. 
And  when  Henriette  was  finally  married  to  Denis, 
and  at  last  happy  once  more  in  the  protection  of  a 
good  man,  in  spite  of  her  friend's  efforts  to  prevent 
the  marriage  by  a  confession,  Gabrielle  brought 
Charlie  to  the  house  party  and  sowed  suspicion  with 
the  devilish  craft  of  an  lago. 

All  this  she  tells  to  her  husband  in  a  weeping  con- 
fession, saying  that  she  could  not  help  it,  that  she 
fought  it,  that  her  better  nature  revolted  and  gave 
her  hours  of  misery.  But  we  are  a  little  suspicious 
of  this  last  statement,  and  she  does  not  win  sym- 
pathy. Our  sympathy  all  goes  to  her  stricken  hus- 


170  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

band,  who  realizes  after  twelve  years  of  happy  mar- 
riage that  he  has  loved  a  shadow,  and  that  hereafter 
he  must  protect  and  try  to  cure  one  morally  sick  to 
death. 

He  behaves  very  well  at  the  end,  and  so  do 
the  rest,  especially  Charlie,  who  goes  quietly  away 
when  he  knows  the  truth,  and  leaves  the  woman  he 
has  loved  and  her  husband  to  work  out  their  salva- 
tion on  a  new  basis  of  understanding. 

Such  is  "The  Secret."  To  all  theatergoers  who 
accept  an  author's  subject  matter  for  what  it  is 
worth,  whether  it  happens  to  be  personally  pleasant 
or  unpleasant  to  them,  and  who  rejoice  in  fine  crafts- 
manship and  dramatic  style,  this  play  will  bring  un- 
alloyed delight.  To  the  mass  of  theatergoers,  per- 
haps, who,  after  all,  are  incapable  of  a  detached 
point  of  view  toward  any  work  of  art,  it  may  prove 
caviare. 

It  is  acted  up  to  the  hilt  by  the  majority  of  the 
company,  and  it  is  staged  by  Mr.  Belasco  better  than 
any  translated  French  drama  has  been  staged  in 
America,  save  Simone's  production  of  "The  Return 
from  Jerusalem,"  in  many,  many  years.  Miss  Starr, 
of  course,  is  not  authoritative  in  the  emotional  stress 
of  the  final  act.  She  is  never  likely  to  be.  But  in 
the  earlier  acts,  in  spite  of  her  propensity  to  climb  all 


BERNSTEIN  AND  BELASCO         171 

over  the  furniture  like  a  playful  kitten,  she  is  a  sweet, 
charming  little  woman  with  hidden  claws  that  more 
and  more  creep  out  from  the  velvet  and  scratch. 
The  finest  performance,  however,  is  given  by  Frank 
Reicher  as  Denis,  the  shy  little  husband,  who  has  a 
little  man's  pathetic  dignity  and  consciousness  of 
commonplaceness,  who  has  a  super-sensitive  imag- 
ination, but  who  never  loses  our  respect,  who  is  al- 
ways at  bottom  a  gentleman,  with  all  that  implies. 
Mr.  Reicher,  with  not  much  external  aid  from  the 
author  in  filling  in  the  part,  yet  contrives  to  make 
a  distinct  and  vivid  character  creation  of  Denis.  A 
sister  of  Martha  Hedman,  Miss  Marguerite  Leslie, 
plays  Henriette  excellently,  and  without  any  of  her 
sister's  foreign  accent. 

But  the  real  triumph  of  the  production,  aside  from 
its  unity  of  key  and  life-like  smoothness,  is  the  pro- 
nunciation of  the  French  names  and  terms.  Every 
player  speaks  them  correctly.  In  an  American  pro- 
duction of  a  Gallic  drama,  this  is  little  short  of  mi- 
raculous. The  two  interior  settings  are  models  of 
beauty  and  good  taste.  Mr.  Belasco  has  here  ap- 
plied his  genius  to  material  worth  while,  and  the 
result  is  an  evening  of  keenest  enjoyment. 


MAUDE  ADAMS  AS  A  MURDERESS 

"The  Legend  of  Leonora" — Empire  Theater, 
January  5,  1914 

J.  M.  Barrie's  latest  play  is  making  a  lot  of  trouble 
just  now.  Miss  Maude  Adams  is  playing  it  at  the 
Empire  Theater,  hence  the  trouble.  If  she  were 
not  playing  it,  the  perplexed  souls  would  stay  at 
home  with  The  Outlook  or  The  Cosmopolitan,  and 
then  they  wouldn't  be  perplexed.  That's  the  way 
they  did  when  "Little  Mary"  was  produced  at  the 
Empire  Theater  some  years  ago.  Of  course,  as  a 
result,  "Little  Mary"  failed.  But  the  circulation 
of  The  Cosmopolitan  is  still  going  up,  no  doubt. 

However,  Miss  Maude  Adams  is  acting  "The  Leg- 
end of  Leonora,"  so  her  admirers  (and  they  are 
legion),  of  course  feel  called  upon  to  go  to  the 
theater.  Poor  things !  What  they  behold  is  enough 
to  turn  the  hair  gray.  "Peter  Pan"  was  pretty  hard 
to  swallow,  but,  of  course,  the  children  liked  it,  and 
one  has  to  sacrifice  something  for  the  children. 
But  not  even  a  child  could  make  head  or  tail  out 

of  "The  Legend  of  Leonora."     It  is  very  sad. 

172 


MAUDE  ADAMS  AS  A  MURDERESS       173 

Yet  this  play  starts  off  innocently  enough.  Cap- 
tain Rattray,  R.  N.,  just  home  in  England  after 
years  of  remote  exploration,  is  invited  to  dinner  by 
an  old  friend,  who  tells  him  six  or  seven  women 
will  be  there,  and,  without  naming  them,  runs  over 
their  characteristics.  One  has  too  little  humor;  one 
has  too  much;  one  is  a  clinging  vine;  one  a  suffra- 
gette, who  gets  angry  if  you  pick  up  anything  she 
drops  (and  she's  always  dropping  things) ;  one  is 
just  a  mother;  one  a  hopeless  coquette;  finally,  one 
is  a  murderess.  Left  alone  by  his  host,  a  woman 
guest  enters.  Which  one  is  she?  The  captain  has 
learned  none  of  the  names.  He  is  left  to  find  out 
which  she  is  by  her  actions.  It  is  a  scene  of  deli- 
cious comedy,  as  the  reader  can  fancy,  with  Barrie  as 
the  author.  Of  course,  the  poor  captain  guesses  first 
one  and  then  the  other,  constantly  on  the  track  and 
off  again.  He  tells  a  funny  story  and  gets  a  stare, 
yet  the  next  moment  he  himself  is  being  laughed  at. 
He  thinks  her  all  mother,  only  to  learn  that  she  tan- 
goes till  a  late  hour,  and  so  on. 

But  at  last  he  learns  that  she  is  the  murderess. 
This  is  something  of  a  shock  to  him  and  to  the  audi- 
ence. Miss  Adams  a  murderess,  indeed!  How 
dare  the  author  do  such  a  thing !  But  Leonora  has- 
tens to  explain.  She  was  in  a  railroad  carriage  with 


174  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

her  little  girl,  and  a  horrid  man  wouldn't  shut  the 
window  when  she  asked  him  to,  so  she  pushed  him 
out  on  the  track  (the  train  was  going  at  high  speed) 
and  shut  the  window  herself.  Of  course,  anybody 
can  realize  there  was  nothing  else  for  her  to  do,  be- 
cause her  little  girl  had  a  cold — one  of  those  mean, 
sniffy  colds. 

Now,  for  some  utterly  unaccountable  reason,  the 
average  auditor  doesn't  seem  to  regard  this  as  a 
complete  justification  for  murder  any  more  than  the 
astonished  captain  did.  Not  even  the  fact  that  it 
was  a  sniffy  cold  seems,  to  the  average  person,  to 
excuse  the  deed.  Confusion  enters  the  audience's 
mind  at  this  point.  They  apparently  think  they  are 
in  for  a  trial  scene  a  la  "Madame  X."  At  any  rate, 
they  are  so  flabbergasted  that  they  do  not  enjoy  the 
closing  revelation  of  this  act — which  is  that  there 
were  not  to  be  seven  guests  at  all,  but  only  one. 
Leonora  herself  was  all  those  kinds  of  women.  (Of 
course,  what  Mr.  Barrie  is  trying  in  his  poor,  stupid, 
blundering  way  to  tell  us  is  that  every  woman  is  all 
those  kinds  of  women,  including,  no  doubt,  the  mur- 
deress, provided  her  little  girl  had  a  sniffy  cold  and 
a  horrid  man  wouldn't  close  the  window.) 

The  next  two  acts  are  unique  in  the  English 
drama.  They  depict  the  trial  of  Leonora  for  mur- 


MAUDE  ADAMS  AS  A  MURDERESS       175 

der,  and  they  are  at  once  as  wild  a  burlesque  of 
courts  as  was  Gilbert's  "Trial  by  Jury,"  and,  at  the 
same  time,  as  warmly  human,  as  mellow,  at  times 
as  tender,  as  any  of  Mr.  Barrie's  more  serious  work. 
Alas!  the  average  admirers  of  Miss  Adams  seem  to 
scent  the  tenderness,  but  to  be  completely  baffled 
by  the  burlesque.  The  present  writer  heard  one 
woman  declare,  with  a  deep  expulsion  of  breath, 
"Oh,  dear,  I  wish  this  play  was  more  probable !" 

It  would  be  about  as  sensible  to  wish  "Engaged" 
more  probable,  or  "The  Mikado,"  for  "The  Legend 
of  Leonora"  is  more  Gilbertian  than  any  of  Barrie's 
other  plays.  Yet  it  differs  from  Gilbert's  work  in 
this  important  respect — it  uses  burlesque  not  so  much 
for  satire,  which  implies  scorn,  as  a  roundabout  way 
of  praising  what  it  is  not  now  popular  to  praise,  the 
"old-fashioned  woman." 

To  Barrie  the  old-fashioned  woman  is  just  woman, 
and  she  includes  the  new  and  the  old,  a  creature 
infinite  and  lovely,  who  can  vote  if  she  wishes, 
bless  her,  and  rear  children,  and  flirt,  and  go  into 
business,  and  always  triumphantly  overthrow  man 
and  his  poor,  logical  systems  by  her  potent  weapon 
of  charm — what,  in  an  earlier  play,  he  called  "that 
damned  charm."  If  Barrie  chooses  to  say  all  this  by 
means  of  quaint  burlesque,  why  not1?  What  is  more 


176  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

delightful  than  good  burlesque,  just  for  its  own 
sake"?  And  when  it  is  burlesque  with  such  a  pur- 
pose added,  to  some  of  us  it  becomes  doubly  de- 
lightful. 

But,  alas,  to  others  it  seems  to  become  doubly 
perplexing.  It  isn't  probable.  But,  for  that  mat- 
ter, what  is? 

Words  are  quite  inadequate  to  describe  the  trial 
scene.  A  learned  judge  sits  high  aloft  at  the  rear. 
The  jury  sit  along  the  footlights,  their  backs  to  the 
audience.  The  prisoner  sits  at  the  left,  the  witness 
box  is  to  the  right.  And  what  goes  on  reminds  you 
at  times  of  the  famous  trial  of  the  Knave  of  Hearts, 
on  the  charge  of  grand  larceny,  as  witnessed  by 
Alice.  Leonora  is  defended  by  the  captain  (who, 
of  course,  has  fallen  in  love  with  her,  and  proposes 
in  open  court).  She  won't  keep  still.  She  talks  at 
any  and  all  times.  She  makes  the  judge  smell  her 
flowers.  She  pities  the  crown  prosecutor,  when  a 
point  goes  against  him.  She  discusses  the  culture 
of  delphiniums  with  one  of  the  jury,  and  the  care 
of  children  with  another.  When  she  wants  tea,  the 
court  takes  a  recess.  When  she  takes  the  witness 
chair  she  promptly  says  all  her  lawyer's  case  is  a  lie 
(he  had  proved  she  wasn't  even  in  that  train),  and 
bases  her  case  on  the  fact  that  her  little  girl  had  a 


MAUDE  ADAMS  AS  A  MURDERESS       177 

cold — a  sniffy  cold.  When  the  jury  retire  to  delib- 
erate, they  send  back  word  that  they  are  lonesome 
and  request  that  Leonora  come  and  sit  with  them 
while  they  debate.  She  goes.  They  promptly  re- 
turn a  verdict  of  not  guilty. 

All  this  takes  two  acts.  They  are  two  acts  of 
delicious  topsy-turvy,  with  not  a  little  sly  fun  poked 
at  British  court  procedure,  and  a  great  deal  of  im- 
plied faith  in  "that  damned  charm."  To  play  them 
effectively,  of  course,  you  must  have  an  actress  who, 
herself,  has  a  personality  full  of  charm,  a  personality 
which  everybody  loves,  to  whose  spell  everybody 
yields.  There  are  a  score  of  actresses  who  could 
have  played  Act  I  of  this  comedy  better  than  Miss 
Adams — who,  indeed,  plays  it  very  badly,  for  she 
does  not  suggest  the  seven  different  kinds  of  a  woman 
at  all.  But  she  and  she  alone  could  play  the  court- 
room scene  and  deliver  its  full  message.  If  the  play 
fails  with  her  as  Leonora,  it  can  never  succeed — 
which  is,  indeed,  a  pity. 

The  last  act  doesn't  amount  to  much.  It  shows 
the  coming  of  happiness  to  Leonora  (who,  by  the 
way,  is  a  widow;  perhaps  we  forgot  to  state  that) 
and  the  captain,  and  gives  the  puzzled  a  loophole  of 
escape,  by  the  suggestion  that  maybe — maybe — 
Leonora  never  pushed  anybody  out  of  a  window,  but 


178  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

was  just  one  of  those  women  capable  of  doing  it  for 
the  salvation  of  her  baby. 

Personally,  we  hope  this  isn't  so.  We  hope  she 
did  push  him  out.  It  served  him  jolly  well  right. 
The  little  girl  had  a  cold — a  horrid,  sniffy  cold.  We 
have  one  just  now  ourself. 


"THE  PHANTOM  RIVAL"  AND  MISS 
CREWS 

"The  Phantom  Rival" — Belasco  Theater, 
October  6,  1914 

Ferenc  Molnar,  Hungarian  playwright,  was  first 
made  known  to  America  when  two  versions  of  his 
play,  "The  Devil,"  were  acted  here  some  seven  years 
ago,  one  by  George  Arliss  and  one  by  Edwin  Stev- 
ens. "The  Devil"  did  not  suggest  a  dramatist  of 
importance,  but  "Where  Ignorance  Is  Bliss,"  pro- 
duced last  year  by  Mr.  Fiske,  though  a  failure, 
showed  the  discerning  that  Molnar  is  an  artist. 

Now  Leo  Ditrichstein  has  adapted  and  Mr.  Bel- 
asco has  produced  his  play,  "The  Phantom  Rival," 
and  no  one  can  longer  doubt  Molnar's  claim  to  real 
distinction.  "The  Phantom  Rival"  is  highly  ef- 
fective theatrically,  it  is  based  on  an  idea,  it  has 
charm  and  wit  and  subtlety,  pith  and  point  and  pur- 
pose. In  short,  it  has  dramatic  style.  Whenever 
Belasco  applies  his  great  gifts  of  management  to  the 

production  of  such  a  play  he  turns  out  an  entertain- 

179 


i8o  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

ment  of  sheer  delight,  as  in  the  case  of  "The  Con- 
cert." It  is  only  because  the  same  fulsome  praises 
have  been  showered  on  his  productions  of  bunkum 
as  on  his  productions  of  stage  literature  that  the  judi- 
cious have  come  to  dread  his  effect  on  our  theater. 
"The  Phantom  Rival,"  however,  can  have  but  one 
effect — that  of  splendid  stimulation. 

Not  the  least  interesting  feature  of  the  produc- 
tion is  the  fact  that  Mr.  Ditrichstein  has  adapted  a 
play  in  which  his  is  far  from  the  major  part  (he  does 
not  even  act  the  role  given  generally  in  Europe  to 
the  leading  actors),  and  Mr.  Belasco  has  picked  for 
the  major  part  a  woman  who  has  not  Billie  Burke's 
kittenish  charm  nor  somebody  else's  lovely  eyelids, 
but  who  does  possess  the  ability  to  act — Miss  Laura 
Hope  Crews.  For  many  years  Miss  Crews  has 
watched  other  girls  of  her  age  go  forward  into  stellar 
roles  by  virtue  of  this,  that,  or  the  other  personal  at- 
tribute which  the  public  liked,  while  she  herself  re- 
mained, like  the  late  Frank  Worthing,  a  better 
player  in  a  lesser  place.  But  she  has,  to  a  degree 
possessed  by  almost  no  other  player  of  her  age  on 
our  stage,  the  technical  command  of  her  trade.  She 
still  has  the  charm  of  youth,  too,  and  she  can  be  as 
kittenish  as  the  youngest  of  them.  But  she  can  top 
them  all  when  it  comes  to  real  impersonation.  And 


'THE  PHANTOM  RIVAL"  181 

it  was  she  whom  Mr.  Belasco  selected  to  play  the 
leading  role  in  "The  Phantom  Rival" — a  wise 
choice,  for  her  performance  ranks  with  Mrs.  Camp- 
bell's in  "Pygmalion";  they  are  the  high  points  in 
the  season. 

The  scene  of  this  play  opens  in  a  restaurant.  An 
author  is  talking  with  an  actor.  He  says  that  every 
woman,  at  the  back  of  her  head,  carries  the  memory 
of  her  first  love,  whom  she  has  glorified  into  an  ideal, 
an  ideal  by  which  she  measures  even  her  husband. 
Then  Frank  Marshall,  a  middle-aged  lawyer,  and 
his  young  wife  Louise  come  in  and  sit  at  another 
table.  They  have  evidently  been  quarreling,  and 
they  continue  to  quarrel.  He  is  a  bundle  of  nerves, 
jealous,  irrational,  and  in  Mr.  Ditrichstein's  adap- 
tation he  seems  rather  harsh  and  brutal — one  of 
those  horrid,  nagging  husbands.  The  trouble  is,  of 
course,  that  he  is  peculiarly  a  continental  type  of 
husband,  and  doesn't  "adapt"  well  into  an  Amer- 
ican setting.  The  quarrel  grows  worse  when  a  man 
(a  foreigner,  evidently)  enters,  whom  his  wife  is 
startled  to  see.  Marshall  makes  a  scene — he  be- 
comes almost  a  table  d'kofe  Othello.  Returning  to 
their  home,  he  drags  a  confession  out  of  his  angry 
and  sore-tried  wife  that  ten  years  ago  she  met  this 
Russian  in  Brooklyn,  and  he  loved  her.  Yes,  he 


182  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

wrote  her  a  note  when  he  left.  No,  he  didn't  kiss 
her.  Yes,  the  note  is  in  her  desk.  Did  she  love 
him?  Did  she?  Mrs.  Marshall,  woman-like,  does 
not  tell  all ! 

The  husband  reads  the  note.  It  is  very  juvenile, 
rather  mushy.  Sascha  Tatischeff  will  come  back, 
he  says,  to  claim  her,  when  he  is  either  a  great 
soldier  or  a  great  diplomat  or  a  great  singer.  Even 
if  he  is  a  poor  tramp  he  will  return.  The  husband 
laughs  at  the  note,  laughs  long  and  loud.  He  has 
been  cured  of  his  jealousy.  But  the  wife  winces 
as  from  a  blow.  He  is  making  fun  of  her  first  love 
ideal,  which  is  sacred,  even  from  a  husband. 

They  are  to  go  to  a  ball  later  that  evening,  where 
the  husband  is  to  meet  a  prominent  Russian  diplo- 
mat and  put  through  a  traction  deal.  Mrs.  Mar- 
shall lies  down  to  rest  before  dressing,  and  as  she 
rests  she  dreams,  and  in  her  dream  she  is  at  the  ball, 
and  first  a  great  soldier  comes  to  claim  her,  and  it 
is  Sascha.  Then  the  great  diplomat  comes,  and  it 
is  Sascha.  Then  a  great  singer,  a  tenor,  comes,  and 
sings  to  the  guests,  and  he  is  Sascha.  Then,  out- 
side, she  meets  a  poor  tramp,  and  he  is  Sascha.  (In 
the  original  it  was  not  a  tramp,  but  a  waiter — and 
such  a  waiter,  the  paragon  of  grace  and  ease !  Mol- 
nar  kept  his  play  quite  free  from  any  sentimental 


"THE  PHANTOM  RIVAL"  183 

touch.)  Each  incarnation  of  Sascha  is  glorious  in 
her  sight,  and  with  each  she  promises  to  flee — and 
then  she  wakes  screaming,  and  it  is  time  to  dress. 

But  before  they  leave  for  the  ball  the  real  Sascha 
enters.  He  is  a  mere  secretary  to  the  diplomat,  an 
errand  boy.  He  has  almost  forgotten  Louise.  He 
was  in  the  army,  but  only  in  the  commissary  depart- 
ment. His  rich  uncle  got  him  that  safe  berth !  He 
gave  up  his  singing — it  was  too  hard  work  to  prac- 
tice. He  is  looking  now  for  a  rich  wife.  He  is, 
in  short,  a  brutal  contrast  to  the  hero  of  the  dream. 
In  the  original  play  Louise,  disillusioned  completely, 
goes  back  "to  her  humdrum  life  and  begins  ironically 
to  check  off  a  grocery  list.  In  the  American  version 
she  becomes  illusioned,  as  it  were,  regarding  her  hus- 
band, which  is  a  sentimental  touch  that  is  out  of  key 
with  the  comedy  and  illogical,  considering  the  kind 
of  man  the  husband  was.  But  evidently  it  was  sup- 
posed that  the  other  ending  would  be  a  bit  too 
cynical  for  us — and  doubtless  it  would ! 

Miss  Crews  plays  Louise,  the  wife,  with  a  skill, 
a  variety,  a  force  and  a  charm  that  delight  the  soul. 
Dignified  and  womanly  under  the  torture  of  her  hus- 
band's jealousy,  she  wins  absolute  conviction  for  the 
character,  makes  us  believe  this  little  woman  could 
carry  an  ideal  ten  years  in  her  memory,  and  makes 


184  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

us  sympathize  with  her  dream  besides.  When  the 
hour  of  the  dream  comes  Miss  Crews  rises  from  her 
couch  and  with  a  strange  light  in  her  eyes  comes 
toward  the  footlights  as  if  groping  with  a  vision, 
and  she  sends  a  shiver  down  every  spinal  column  in 
the  theater,  just  as  Mansfield  used  to  do;  she  pre- 
pares, with  her  eyes  and  a  smothered  cry  or  two,  for 
the  illusion  of  the  dream,  and  makes  Belasco's  task 
of  shifting  the  actual  scene  to  the  dream-gray  ball- 
room comparatively  easy.  All  through  the  dream 
she  maintains  a  strange  air  of  passionate  unreality; 
and  after  the  waking,  in  the  last  act,  when  the  real 
Sascha  comes  and  the  two  talk  together,  she  manages 
the  effect  of  ever-increasing  disillusionment  with 
wonderful  skill.  There  is  no  pathos  about  it.  A 
sly  sense  of  humor  makes  her  alive  to  the  ironies  of 
the  situation.  She  is  the  woman  ten  years  married 
to  another  man,  with  a  son  asleep  in  the  next  room. 
It  is  no  present  happiness  that  is  vanishing,  but  a 
fond  memory,  a  lovely  dream;  the  wraith  of  her  girl- 
hood is  going  wistfully  from  the  room.  It  is  seldom 
that  any  player  on  our  stage  lays  hold  so  firmly  on 
a  character,  and  at  once  makes  that  character  live 
and  carries  the  mere  theatrical  situations  at  the  same 
time  so  triumphantly  along.  The  soul  and  the  me- 
chanics of  the  drama  alike  are  held  every  moment 


"THE  PHANTOM  RIVAL"  185 

firmly  in  the  grasp  of  this  young  woman.  Mr.  Bel- 
asco  showed  his  wisdom  in  picking  her  for  the  part. 
Mr.  Ditrichstein  himself  plays  the  role  of  Sascha. 
It  is  not  a  difficult  one,  but  it  offers  him,  in  the  dream 
episode,  an  opportunity  to  appear  in  four  different 
incarnations,  and  in  the  first  and  last  acts  in  yet  a 
fifth.  As  the  soldier  lover  and  as  the  great  diplo- 
mat of  the  dream,  he  lacks  romantic  charm  and  au- 
thentic dignity.  As  the  singer,  however,  he  is 
capital;  and  as  the  real  Sascha  at  the  close,  when 
he  unconsciously  smashes  Louise's  ideal  by  the  dis- 
closure of  the  more  than  common  clay  of  which  he 
is  made,  Mr.  Ditrichstein  plays  with  an  ironic  edge, 
a  deft  delicacy,  a  sense  of  the  picturesque  and  the 
subtle,  which  makes  that  scene  between  actor  and 
actress  one  of  the  most  delightful  bits  of  high  com- 
edy acting  seen  on  our  stage  in  many  a  long  day. 
Mrs.  Fiske  and  George  Arliss,  Grace  George  and  the 
late  Frank  Worthing,  or  Ferdinand  Gottschalk, 
might  give  us  a  similar  pleasure  in  a  similar  scene. 
But  who  else  could  do  it?  They  are  not  many, 
surely.  And  where  would  they  find  such  a  scene? 
Plays  with  the  underlying  subtlety  of  psychology  of 
"The  Phanton  Rival"  are  not  written  every  day, 
nor  plays  with  its  deftness  of  development  and  force 
of  imagination.  It  is  one  of  the  treats  of  the  season. 


i86  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

In  the  staging  of  this  work  Mr.  Belasco  has  in- 
dulged in  much  less  than  his  usual  elaboration  of 
details  and  slowness  of  minor  action.  The  result 
is  the  better  for  it.  There  is  no  less  care  for  surface 
illusion,  of  course.  Every  exit  and  entrance  is  man- 
aged with  the  utmost  lif elikeness ;  the  waiters  in  the 
restaurant  are  like  real  waiters;  the  room  in  the 
Marshall  house,  pretty  and  tasteful,  exactly  reflects 
the  sort  of  woman  Mrs.  Marshall  is,  and,  moreover, 
it  has  that  illusive  quality  of  homelikeness  Mr.  Bel- 
asco knows  so  well  how  to  impart  and  most  other 
directors  know  so  little.  The  ballroom  scene,  which 
is  the  setting  for  the  dream,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
all  in  gray,  with  lights  half  dimmed  in  white  wrap- 
pings, and  is  as  simple  as  it  can  well  be.  Probably 
it  would  be  more  effective  if  it  had  no  reality  at  all 
— if  it  were  half  a  flight  of  stairs  and  shadowy  cur- 
tains— but  we  do  not  so  stage  our  plays  in  America, 
and  Mr.  Belasco  has  done  wonders  with  our  con- 
ventional type  of  "realistic"  setting. 

The  one  error  in  the  production  is  the  casting  of 
Mr.  Marshall,  the  husband.  This  part  is  played 
by  Malcolm  Williams,  and  while  he  definitely  holds 
to  an  ideal  of  the  character,  it  is  not  in  his  power  to 
portray  the  right  ideal.  He  is  too  large,  too  force- 
ful, too  downright.  Not  only  is  this  a  play  of  subtle 


'THE  PHANTOM  RIVAL"  187 

psychology  and  real  high  comedy,  but  the  husband's 
jealousy  must  be  convincingly  the  result  of  strained 
nerves  and  a  temperament  given  to  brooding.  Mr. 
Williams  is  not  a  high  comedy  actor;  he  lacks  the 
finish.  And  he  cannot  suggest  a  man  given  to  nerves 
and  brooding.  Therefore  his  scenes  with  Miss 
Crews  suggest  the  constant  clash  of  conflicting  keys 
in  a  duet;  they  are  not  playing  on  the  same  plane — 
one  is  acting  on  the  high  comedy  level,  the  other 
somewhere  below  it.  And,  moreover,  Mr.  Williams, 
by  his  inability  to  suggest  the  frazzled  nerves  and 
the  self-torture  of  a  man  genuinely  given  to  brood- 
ing, loses  sympathy  for  the  husband.  He  becomes 
a  brute.  His  wife  ought  to  hate  him.  You  can't 
understand  how  she  could  ever  have  married  such  a 
man,  even  without  her  first  love  memory  as  a  de- 
terrent. 

But  perhaps  it  is  too  much  to  ask  for  perfection. 


BARKER  BRINGS  THE  NEW  STAGE 
CRAFT 

"Androcles  and  the  Lion" — Wallaces  Theater, 
January  27,  1915 

Granville  Barker,  playwright,  actor,  and  man- 
ager, a  man  of  strong  original  talent  and  in  sympa- 
thy with  radical  experiments  in  stage  craft,  has 
begun  an  American  season  at  Wallack's  Theatre, 
with  a  production  of  Shaw's  "Androcles  and  the 
Lion"  preceded  by  Anatole  France's  "The  Man 
Who  Married  a  Dumb  Wife." 

There  was  a  great  hue  and  cry  raised,  when  Bar- 
ker announced  his  coming,  by  American  actors  who 
said  that  in  these  hard  times  the  American  stage 
should  be  for  goods  made  in  America,  by  Americans. 
But  such  talk  is  silly.  The  American  dramatists 
and  the  American  actors  deserve  patronage  only  in 
proportion  to  their  merits,  and  if  Barker  can  give  us 
something  better,  why,  they  will  either  have  to  go 
into  the  movies  or  else  find  work  at  other  occupa- 
tions. That  is  a  law  of  nature,  as  well  as  of  art. 

1 88 


THE  NEW  STAGE  CRAFT          189 

And  Barker  did  give  us  something  decidedly  better. 
He  gave  us,  for  a  start  off,  two  fascinating  plays, 
beautifully  mounted  and  acted  according  to  the 
picturesque  and  suggestive  style  of  the  new  stage- 
craft. 

The  first  thing  he  did  on  taking  possession  of  Wai- 
lack's  theater  was  to  build  the  stage  out  over  the 
orchestra  pit  and  the  first  two  rows  of  seats,  with 
entrances  made  through  the  former  stage  boxes. 
At  the  front  of  this  almost  Shakespearean  platform 
stage  were  neither  footlights  nor  rail.  People  in  the 
front  row  of  seats  could  literally  touch  the  feet  of 
the  actors  when  they  came  to  the  edge.  The  next 
thing  he  did  was  to  install  arc  lamps  for  illumina- 
tion, combined  with  white  spots  from  the  balconies. 
Thus  all  the  light  comes  from  overhead,  and  is  as 
nearly  pure  white  as  possible.  The  next  thing  he 
did  was  to  build  a  small  revolving  stage  twenty  feet 
back  of  the  proscenium  opening,  for  use  in  "Andro- 
cles  and  the  Lion." 

"Androcles  and  the  Lion"  is  a  screamingly  funny 
skit  on  the  early  Christian  martyrs,  by  G.  B.  Shaw, 
which  shocked  the  British  public,  and  will  not  shock 
us  in  the  least.  It  was  printed  in  full  in  Every- 
body's Magazine  last  September.  The  first  scene 
shows  Androcles  and  his  wife  in  the  jungle,  where 


190  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Androcles  finds  the  lion  and  removes  the  thorn  from 
its  paw,  in  a  scene  of  hilarious  mirth.  For  this  act 
an  entirely  conventional  double  curtain,  of  green, 
ragged  strips,  is  let  down  just  inside  the  proscenium, 
to  represent  the  jungle,  and  all  action  takes  place  on 
the  platform  stage  over  what  was  once  the  orchestra 
and  rows  A  and  B.  For  the  next  scene  this  curtain 
goes  up,  and  we  see  a  set  of  arches  just  behind,  of 
grayish-white,  presumably  the  walls  of  Rome.  In 
front  of  them  are  the  Roman  soldiers  and  the  Chris- 
tian martyrs  being  led  to  the  city.  All  groupings 
and  colored  costumes  make  striking  pictures  against 
this  background  of  simple  shadowed  arches. 

Next  the  arches  vanish,  and  we  see  the  full  stage 
set,  the  gladiators'  room  in  the  Coliseum,  with  the 
grated  door  leading  to  the  arena  in  the  center,  and 
over  it  the  door  to  Csesar's  box.  This  set  goes  across 
the  stage  and  is  painted  a  yellowish  white,  like  old 
marble.  It  is  very  thick  and  solid,  but  very  simple. 
The  wings  are  masked  out  on  either  side  merely  by 
tall  gray  screens,  after  Gordon  Craig.  Those  who 
have  read  the  play  will  remember  that  after  the 
scene  in  this  room  Androcles  goes  through  the  door 
into  the  arena  to  be  devoured  by  the  lion,  and  in  the 
next  scene  we  see  him  coming  out  of  the  door  on  the 
other  side,  and  see  the  lion  recognize  him  and  begin 


THE  NEW  STAGE  CRAFT  191 

to  kiss  him  instead  of  eating  him,  much  to  Caesar's 
amazement.  Then  the  scene  changes  back  into  the 
gladiators'  room,  and  the  lion  comes  in  with  An- 
drocles  and  chases  everybody,  including  the  emperor 
himself.  Thus  we  see  the  reason  for  Mr.  Barker's 
revolving  stage.  The  scene  is  built  so  that  the  back 
side  shows  the  reverse  of  the  door  and  the  wall 
and  the  emperor's  box;  and  when  the  first  epi- 
sode is  played,  and  Androcles  starts  through  the 
door  to  his  martyrdom,  the  lights  go  out,  the  stage 
revolves  in  less  than  a  minute,  and  when  the  lights 
flash  on  we  see  Androcles  coming  through  the  other 
side  of  the  door.  The  illusion  is  perfect,  and  the 
time  consumed  in  making  the  change  so  very  brief 
that  it  does  not  delay  the  play  at  all.  The  same 
thing  is  repeated  while  the  audience  is  still  rocking 
with  laughter  over  the  absurd  antics  of  the  lion  when 
he  recognizes  the  man  who  pulled  the  thorn  from 
his  foot. 

The  advantages  of  Mr.  Barker's  settings  are 
many.  First  of  all,  there  is  the  intimacy  which  the 
platform  stage  gives.  Next,  there  is  the  pictorial 
quality  of  the  simple  backings,  the  overhead  white 
light  and  the  consequent  prominence  of  the  costumes 
and  groupings.  Finally,  there  is  the  great  advan- 
tage of  speed  gained  by  the  revolving  stage  and  the 


192  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

great  solidity  which  this  stage  makes  possible  in  the 
construction  of  the  one  wall  which  comprises  the 
whole  Coliseum  setting.  A  single  bit  of  wall,  heav- 
ily built,  solid,  picturesque,  is  far  more  suggestive 
than  acres  of  flapping  canvas.  Also,  it  throws  the 
actors  into  far  more  prominence,  for  it  does  not  dis- 
tract the  eye  to  a  hundred  different  details,  and  it 
forms  a  plain  background  against  which  the  rich 
costumes  can  group  in  lovely  combinations.  On  our 
old  stages  this  skit  would  be  played  in  five  scenes, 
with  consequent  waits,  totaling  at  least  half  an  hour. 
Barker  plays  it  practically  as  a  one-act  drama. 

Of  course,  these  settings  would  avail  little  with- 
out intelligent  acting  and  a  play  adapted  to  such 
treatment.  But  Mr.  Shaw's  skit  is  entirely  adapted 
to  such  treatment,  being  fantastic  in  mood  and  far 
removed  from  the  present  in  time.  And  Mr. 
Barker's  company  acts  it  to  the  hilt — without  any 
star  performers,  even  though  his  wife,  Lilian  Mc- 
Carthy, is  featured  on  the  program — and  with  a 
speed  and  zest  and  team  play  that  is  beyond  praise. 
One  has  only  to  note,  for  instance,  how  every  player 
considers  his  position  with  relation  to  the  groupings, 
the  stage  pictures,  not  the  spotlight.  If  there  is  a 
star  performer,  it  is  Phil  Dwyer  as  the  lion.  More 
comical  and  expressive  roars  were  never  emitted  by 


THE  NEW  STAGE  CRAFT          193 

human  nor  feline  throat.  The  part  of  Androcles 
is  delightfully  played  by  O.  P.  Heggie,  in  a  mild, 
wistful,  long  suffering,  early-Christian-martyr  vein, 
with  the  necessary  hint  beneath  of  dogged  will  and 
a  dream  triumphant. 

"Androcles  and  the  Lion"  is  preceded  by  "The 
Man  Who  Married  a  Dumb  Wife,"  a  farce  trans- 
lated by  Professor  Curtis  Hidden  Page  from  the 
French  of  Anatole  France.  It  is  not,  however,  a 
piece  of  subtle  irony  like  "Thais"  or  "Penguin 
Island,"  but  apparently  a  very  frank  imitation  of 
those  old  French  farces  which  used  to  be  written 
when  Columbus  was  discovering  America,  such  as 
the  famous  "Master  Pierre  Patelin."  Mr.  Barker 
has  given  it  a  Reinhardt  setting  designed  by  an 
American  artist,  Robert  E.  Jones — a  setting  in  black 
and  white  on  the  style  of  the  relief  stage,  with  cos- 
tumes in  heavy  reds  and  oranges  and  strong  yellows. 
Even  so,  however,  appreciation  of  the  play  can 
hardly  come  without  an  historical  sense.  It  tells 
the  tale  of  a  man  who  had  a  dumb  wife,  got  a  famous 
doctor  to  restore  her  voice,  and  then  was  driven  so 
nearly  mad  by  her  prattle  that  he  had  the  s3me  doc- 
tor put  a  powder  in  his  ear  to  make  him  deaf.  This 
tale  is  so  childish  in  its  humor  that  you  can  enjoy 
it  only  by  regarding  it  not  as  a  modern  work,  but 


194  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

as  a  medieval  farce.  The  stage  settings,  however, 
and  the  costume  groupings  and  the  street  processions 
passing  across  the  platform  stage  over  the  very  heads 
of  the  front  row  of  spectators  are  a  delight  to  the 
senses,  whether  you  are  interested  in  history  or  not. 


A  FEW  MORALIZINGS  FROM  "THE 
WEAVERS" 

"The  Weavers"  —  Garden  Theater,  December  14, 


The  present  dramatic  critic  of  the  New  York 
Tribune  (we  say  "present"  because  The  Tribune 
seems  to  believe  that  variety  is  the  spice  of  criticism) 
is  a  young  man,  and  when  he  witnessed  the  first 
American  performance  of  Hauptmann's  play,  "The 
Weavers,"  acted  at  the  Garden  Theatre  by  Emanuel 
Reicher  and  an  excellent  company,  his  enthusiasm 
did  him  credit.  He  said  next  morning  that  the  pro- 
duction might  very  possibly  mark  an  epoch  in  the 
American  theatre.  We  only  wish  that  we  were  ten 
years  younger  ourself,  and  had  therefore  escaped  ten 
years  of  theatrical  disillusionment,  and  could  agree 
with  him.  But  we  are  not  ten  years  younger,  and 
we  have  not  escaped  disillusionment.  The  Amer- 
ican stage  will  go  right  on  much  as  if  Mr.  Reicher 
had  never  mounted  "The  Weavers."  That  play 
will  no  more  affect  the  current  of  our  drama  than 

195 


196  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

the  Russian  novelists  have  affected  the  art  of  Robert 
W.  Chambers  and  Gene  Stratton  Porter. 

Nor  is  "The  Weavers"  the  first  play  of  the  kind 
which  has  been  produced,  and  well  produced,  in 
America.  To  be  sure,  it  was  written  over  twenty 
years  ago  and  belongs  among  the  pioneer  works  of 
sheer  naturalism  in  the  theatre,  but  it  never  had  a 
production  on  our  English  speaking  stage  (so  far  as 
the  records  show)  till  this  month.  In  actual  pro- 
duction it  was  preceded  by  several  other  purely 
naturalistic  plays,  notable  among  them  being  Gals- 
worthy's "Strife,"  also,  curiously  enough,  a  drama 
of  industrial  conflict.  "Strife"  was  put  on,  and  put 
on  with  rare  skill,  at  the  New  Theatre,  and  played 
by  the  New  Theatre  company  in  various  parts  of 
the  country.  But  does  anybody  venture  to  affirm 
that  "Strife"  has  marked  an  epoch  in  our  playhouse? 
Has  the  naturalistic  drama  made  any  perceptible 
strides  among  us  as  a  result1?  Alas,  nary  a  stride! 

Personally,  we  felt  at  the  first  production  of 
"Strife"  exactly  what  Mr.  Broun  of  The  Tribune 
felt  at  the  first  production  of  "The  Weavers" — 
namely,  a  great  sense  of  mental  exhilaration,  a  sense 
that  at  last  the  stage  was  showing  something  more 
than  the  eternal  battle  of  sex  and  the  eternal  per- 
sonal narrative;  that  it  was  illuminating  a  whole 


A  FEW  MORALIZINGS  197 

section  of  life  and  creeping  very  close  to  realities. 
We  fancy  we  even  wrote,  in  our  enthusiasm,  that 
the  production  of  "Strife,"  an  English  naturalistic 
play,  would  perhaps  mark  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
our  playhouses. 

And  Cohan  goes  marching  on.  Megrue  is  to  the 
front.  Ethel  Barrymore  plays  "Emma  McChes- 
ney."  Grace  George  falls  back  upon  revivals. 
Elsie  Ferguson  turns  to  Hall  Caine  for  a  new  play. 

Nothing  could  be  farther  from  our  wish  than  to 
detract  one  jot  from  Mr.  Broun's  enthusiasm,  or  even 
to  suggest  that  he  desist  from  his  efforts  to  urge  all 
New  Yorkers  into  the  Garden  Theatre  to  see  a  vivid 
and  truthful  performance  of  a  truly  splendid  play,  a 
play  in  which  naturalism  is  raised  to  eloquence  and 
sincerity  is  more  soul-searching  than  sentiment. 
Every  audience  that  "The  Weavers"  can  reach  is 
so  much  gained.  But  the  sad  fact  remains,  we  fear, 
that  the  naturalistic  drama  is  foreign  to  American 
taste  and  understanding,  and  each  production  of  it 
marks  not  an  epoch  but  an  "impossible  loyalty" — 
one  of  those  impossible  loyalties,  perhaps,  which 
caused  Matthew  Arnold  to  think  so  tenderly  of  Ox- 
ford. A  certain  type  of  artist,  a  certain  type  of 
critic,  a  certain  very  limited  section  of  the  public, 
will  always  admire  this  kind  of  drama  above  all 


198  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

others,  at  least  in  certain  moods.  But  for  the  great 
majority  it  will,  apparently,  remain,  in  America, 
caviar;  which  is  to  say,  an  expensive  luxury. 

Who  can  say  why  this  is?  Is  it  because  of  some- 
thing in  the  national  temperament?  Is  it  because 
of  our  dramatic  training — for  audiences  are  trained, 
just  as  much  as  artists'?  Is  it  a  racial  convention,  or 
a  racial  limitation? 

Think  back  over  the  American  dramas  coincident 
with  "The  Weavers"  (which  was  produced  first  in 
1893).  At  about  that  time  Herne  wrote  "Shore 
Acres,"  which  was  considered  a  great  step  forward 
in  realism.  But  how  far  that  play  is  from  the 
naturalism  of  "The  Weavers" !  One,  after  all,  is 
a  conventional  narrative  of  personalities,  the  other 
is  a  picture  of  a  people,  a  class,  a  community.  Since 
Herne,  we  have  had  Fitch,  Gillette,  Klein,  Moody, 
Thomas,  Eugene  Walter,  Edward  Sheldon,  Percy 
MacKaye,  and  so  on — not  a  one  of  them  really  being 
more  than  superficially  affected  by  naturalism. 
Better  technique,  closer  observation,  greater  intel- 
lectuality, enabled  some  of  these  men  to  write  much 
finer  plays  than  their  American  predecessors.  But 
none  of  them  has  produced  a  play  in  the  style  of 
"The  Weavers,"  or  of  "Strife,"  or  even  attempted 
such  a  play.  Each,  in  his  way,  has  snatched  a  bit 


A  FEW  MORALIZINGS  199 

of  personal  story  out  of  the  web  of  life,  usually,  if 
not  invariably,  a  story  of  sex,  or  greatly  involving 
sex,  heightened  it  by  every  possible  device,  and  set 
it  before  us  in  the  terms  of  the  conventional  drama. 
There  is  less  sign  today  of  a  naturalistic  drama  in 
America  than  there  was  when  Walter  wrote  "The 
Easiest  Way."  Possibly,  also,  there  is  less  of  such 
drama  in  Germany  than  when  Hauptmann  wrote 
"The  Weavers." 

There  is,  however,  one  fact  to  be  considered  which 
probably  has  a  decided  bearing  on  the  case.  Except 
in  some  happy  land  where  all  theatregoers  enjoy 
their  drama  seriously,  the  great  majority  of  people 
go  to  the  playhouse  in  a  holiday  mood.  This  is 
especially  true  of  America.  When  people  enter  the 
playhouse  in  a  holiday  mood  it  almost  invariably 
follows  that  they  will,  first  of  all,  prefer  comedy, 
and,  secondly,  that  if  they  are  pleased  by  more  tense 
or  serious  drama,  it  will  be  drama  with  a  strong  story 
interest,  with  the  elemental  "punch,"  with  the  power 
to  arouse  sympathy  in  the  concrete  fate  of  human 
characters.  The  naturalistic  drama,  taking  life,  as 
it  does,  without  beginning  and  leaving  it  without  an 
end,  asking  as  it  does  of  an  audience  that  they  draw 
their  own  conclusions  from  the  mere  spectacle  of 
observed  reality,  has  a  peculiarly  intellectual  em- 


200  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

phasis,  and  is  inevitably  the  chosen  drama  of  the  few 
rather  than  the  many — probably  even  in  Germany. 
Moreover,  the  naturalistic  drama,  by  the  very  laws 
of  its  being,  is  a  local  affair  primarily.  Scribe  and 
Sardou  go  into  any  language,  in  any  land.  "The 
Weavers"  is  Teutonic,  and  could  no  more  be  adapted 
than  you  could  adapt  a  photograph  of  von  Hinden- 
berg  or  turn  Pilsener  beer  into  Rheims  champagne. 
The  truer  it  is  to  its  artistic  type,  the  truer  it  is  to 
some  definite  people  or  locality. 

For  these  reasons,  it  seems  fairly  obvious  that 
under  the  conditions  of  production  in  the  American 
theatre  there  is  little  chance  or  encouragement  for 
a  native  naturalistic  drama.  Our  plays  here  have 
to  be  produced  for  a  long  run — that  is,  for  the 
masses,  not  the  few;  and  they  have  to  be  produced 
for  Broadway,  which,  we  fear,  isn't  much  interested 
in  the  minutis  of  life  in  New  England  or  the  Ten- 
nessee mountains.  In  spite  of  the  tentative  and 
still  amateur  efforts  to  establish  local  theatres  in 
America — provincial  theatres  in  the  true  sense — 
they  are  still  efforts  with  no  real  effect  on  the  cur- 
rent of  our  drama.  At  best  they  are  only  hopeful 
signs  on  the  low  eastern  horizon.  We  still  produce 
for  Broadway,  and  we  still  produce  not  for  theatres 
where  there  is  a  system  flexible  enough  to  let  the 


A  FEW  MORALIZINGS  201 

few  have  their  plays  as  well  as  the  many,  but  for 
theatres  where  only  the  drama  which  can  attract  the 
crowds  has  any  chance  for  survival. 

In  other  words,  even  if  there  were  a  demand  for 
a  native  naturalistic  drama  in  America,  this  demand 
cannot,  under  present  conditions,  make  itself  felt, 
and  there  is  no  encouragement  to  authors  to  try  their 
hand  at  this  perhaps  the  most  difficult  of  dramatic 
forms.  Such  statements  are  rather  platitudinous, 
but  it  seems  worth  while  to  reiterate  them.  All 
those  who  enjoy  such  a  play  as  "The  Weavers,"  who 
would  like  to  see  our  stage  attempt  the  creation  of 
similar  dramas,  must  fix  firmly  in  their  heads  and 
hearts  the  idea  that  our  stage  never  can  attempt  this 
creation  till  it  is  conducted  under  a  different  system ; 
until  there  are  standard  provincial  repertory  houses. 
And  such  houses  must  not  be  amateur  "Little"  the- 
atres, but  professional  and  of  man's  estate.  The 
problem,  after  all,  is  a  practical  one.  A  dramatist 
can  no  more  create  a  play  without  the  physical 
means  than  a  painter  can  paint  without  colors  and 
brushes. 


A  TWENTIETH-CENTURY  TRAGEDY 

"Justice"  —  Candler  Theater,  April  j, 


John  Galsworthy's  play,  "Justice,"  one  of  the 
most  striking  examples  of  the  modern  naturalistic 
drama,  was  first  produced  at  the  Duke  of  York's 
Theatre,  London,  on  February  21,  1910.  It  cre- 
ated a  profound  impression  in  England,  but  for  six 
years  it  remained  neglected  by  American  profes- 
sional managers,  though  there  were  occasional  ama- 
teur preformances.  Finally  Mr.  John  D.  Williams, 
after  the  formation  of  the  theatrical  firm  of  Corey, 
Williams  and  Riter,  resolved  to  make  trial  of  this 
noble  work.  Selecting  a  cast  of  exceptional  excel- 
lence, directed  by  B.  Iden  Payne,  Mr.  Williams  and 
his  partners  produced  "Justice"  in  New  Haven,  on 
March  2,  1916.  Several  representatives  of  New 
York  theatres  were  present  on  that  occasion,  and  as 
a  result  of  their  highly  developed  powers  of  ob- 
servation, seven  New  York  theatres  refused  to  give 
the  production  house  room  on  Broadway.  Curi- 
ously enough,  however.  Mr.  Williams  still  had  faith 

202 


TWENTIETH-CENTURY  TRAGEDY     203 

in  Galsworthy's  drama,  and  ultimately  he  found  a 
theatre  in  our  metropolis  which  was  willing  "to  take 
a  chance  on  gloom."  Accordingly,  "Justice" 
opened  at  the  Candler  Theatre,  New  York,  on  April 
3.  It  only  remains  to  add  that  its  success  was  im- 
mediate and  decisive;  in  a  very  few  days  it  was  play- 
ing to  the  capacity  of  the  theatre. 

We  record  this  bit  of  theatrical  history  because 
it  so  well  illustrates  not  only  the  obstacles  which 
confront  a  manager  bent  on  doing  fine  and  serious 
things,  but  also  the  ready  response  to  genuine  sin- 
cerity and  power  which  is  latent  always  in  the  public, 
even  the  public  of  New  York.  Nor,  perhaps,  can 
one  wholly  blame  the  theatre  managers  who  refused 
to  book  "Justice."  They  had  all  seen  three  of  Gals- 
worthy's other  plays  produced  in  New  York  with- 
out causing  a  ripple  of  public  enthusiasm,  and  here 
was  a  fourth  far  more  tragic  and  unrelieved  than 
the  others.  It  didn't  look  like  a  hopeful  gamble, 
after  all. 

Why  was  it,  then,  that  "Justice"  became  a  great 
popular  success,  when  "The  Silver  Box"  was  a  fail- 
ure, and  "Strife"  and  "The  Pigeon"  attracted  only 
moderate  audiences'?  Why  should  a  stark  tragedy 
succeed,  and  a  comparative  comedy  like  "The 
Pigeon"  remain  caviare  to  the  general*? 


204  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

The  answer  probably  is  that  in  "Justice"  Gals- 
worthy's still  white  flame  of  spiritual  sympathy  has 
for  once  set  fire  to  the  curtains  of  his  reserve,  and 
he  has  burst  into  a  blaze  of  passion.  It  may  seem 
curious  to  some  to  speak  of  "Justice"  as  passionate. 
But  in  the  finer  sense  of  that  noble  and  abused  word, 
it  glows  with  a  white  heat  of  passion.  Beside  it, 
"The  Silver  Box"  is  comparatively  cold;  beside  it 
"Strife,"  with  its  ironic  vicious  circle,  so  that  the 
play  ends  where  it  began,  and  "The  Pigeon,"  with 
its  wistful  inconclusiveness,  are  emotionally  indefi- 
nite. "Justice,"  after  all,  takes  sides,  it  gets  some- 
where, and  tugs  at  our  hearts  in  the  process.  No- 
body has  ever  questioned,  or  could  question,  the 
sincerity  of  Galsworthy's  sympathies  for  the  out- 
cast, the  unfortunate,  the  oppressed,  in  any  of  his 
works.  But  in  his  efforts  to  be  fair,  to  keep  his 
judgments  cool,  and,  furthermore,  to  preserve  the 
balance  of  life  in  all  situations — a  purely  technical 
problem  of  the  realist — he  has  in  his  dramas,  at 
least,  often  erred  on  the  side  of  restraint.  He  has 
seemed  not  enough  to  take  sides,  or  not  enough  to 
drive  for  a  definite  conclusion.  It  is  an  error  the 
dramatist  cannot  make,  and  hope  for  a  wide  audi- 
ence. It  is  a  mistake  he  has  not  made  in  "Justice." 

Yet  this  play  has  no  hero,  and  no  villain,  or, 


TWENTIETH-CENTURY  TRAGEDY     205 

rather,  it  makes  of  every  man  and  woman  in  the 
audience  the  villain.  The  young  clerk  Falder  (very 
graphically  and  truly  played  by  John  Barrymore) 
obeys  a  primitive  instinct  of  self-preservation  and 
the  preservation  of  the  woman  he  loves,  when  he 
raises  his  employer's  check  as  the  only  means  of 
securing  money.  But  he  also  no  less  surely  breaks 
one  of  society's  necessary  safe-guarding  laws,  and 
society  (which  is  you  and  I  and  all  the  audience) 
has  agreed  that  for  our  self-preservation  we  must 
put  such  offenders  away.  So  far,  so  good.  But 
after  some  thousands  of  years,  the  best  place  we  have 
supplied  for  the  segregation  of  the  law-breakers  is 
Sing  Sing  prison  and  its  ilk.  (Mr.  Thomas  Mott 
Osborne  pointed  out  to  the  Drama  League,  by  the 
way,  that  the  cell  of  an  English  prison,  represented 
in  "Justice,"  was  a  "palace"  compared  to  the  cells 
in  Sing-Sing.)  Mr.  Galsworthy  doesn't  believe 
that  society  should  rest  content  with  such  a  solution. 
He  doesn't  believe  that  society  should  take  one  of 
its  weak  members  (a  man,  mind  you,  who  was  not 
base  nor  brutal,  who  was  ironically  obeying  one  of 
the  best  impulses  of  his  life — to  save  the  woman  he 
loved  from  vile  persecution,  when  he  obeyed  one  of 
the  worst)  and  put  him  through  the  prison  mill  and 
then  turn  him  out  branded  and  doomed.  All  Gals- 


206  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

worthy's  fairness  of  temper  and  skill  in  preserving 
the  cross  purposes,  the  checks  and  balances  of  actual 
life,  are  seen  in  his  handling  of  the  first  two  acts  of 
this  play — the  arrest  and  trial  of  Falder.  The  lad 
goes  to  prison  with  our  pity,  but  he  goes,  we  feel, 
rightly. 

But  in  the  last  two  acts  the  author  can  at  last 
take  sides.  He  has  no  defence  for  our  present  prison 
system,  and  no  need  to  place  any  checks  upon  our 
passionate  sympathy  for  poor  Falder  after  his  re- 
lease, as  the  weak,  helpless,  branded  creature  strug- 
gles and  dies  in  the  net  that  has  been  woven  about 
him.  Here  the  author's  own  passion  of  sympathy 
glows  at  white  heat,  and  here  is  the  secret  of  the 
great  success  of  "Justice." 

Before  a  play  of  such  profound  and  searching 
social  implications  as  this,  the  critic  is  loath  to  speak 
of  literary  or  technical  excellencies.  The  power  of 
the  drama,  as  acted  in  the  theatre,  over  the  emotions 
of  all  beholders  is  sufficient  commentary  on  its  work- 
manship and  presentation.  But  it  is  not  amiss  to 
point  out  at  this  season — the  tercentenary  of  Shake- 
peare's  death — that  the  realistic  tragedy  of  the  early 
Twentieth  Century  differs  far  more  radically  than 
in  mere  literary  form  from  the  poetic  tragedy  of  the 
early  Seventeenth.  It  has  been  said  that  Shakes- 


TWENTIETH-CENTURY  TRAGEDY     207 

peare  never  wrote  a  play  with  a  hero,  and  the  state- 
ment is  true.  Neither  has  "Justice"  a  hero.  But 
Shakespeare  never  wrote  a  play  in  which  the  audi- 
ence was  the  villain,  which  looked  beyond  the  in- 
dividual to  the  mass.  By  his  very  act  in  making 
us  the  villain  of  "Justice"  Galsworthy  tacitly  recog- 
nizes a  curative  possibility  in  society  itself;  he 
removes  the  blame  from  a  vague  Omnipotence  and 
by  placing  it  on  our  shoulders  bids  us  gird  our  loins 
with  hope  and  courage.  It  is  hard  sometimes  in 
this  year  of  our  Lord,  1916,  to  catch  even  the  faint- 
est hint  of  that  "far  off,  divine  event"  toward  which 
the  whole  Creation  is  supposed  to  be  moving.  Yet, 
to  the  present  writer,  Galsworthy's  "Justice"  is  a 
precious  gleam  in  the  darkness. 

We  hold  to  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  State 
of  New  York  is  even  now  proposing  to  repeat  in  a 
new  structure  the  terrible  cell-block  system  of  Sing 
Sing  prison. 


SECTION  III 
SHAKESPEAREAN  REVIVALS 


ON  FINDING  THE  JOKE  IN  "OTHELLO" 

Faversham's  "Othello" — Lyric  Theater, 
February  p,  igi6 

William  Faversham  played  lago  exclusively  dur- 
ing the  opening  week  of  his  brief  New  York  engage- 
ment. He  had  promised  us  "Romeo  and  Juliet" 
with  "futurist"  scenery,  but  was  forced  to  abandon 
the  plan,  as  he  found  the  production  as  yet  too  rough 
for  submission  to  the  metropolitan  public.  He 
promises  to  improve  it  and  launch  it  again  next 
year.  His  production  of  "Othello"  is  not  "futur- 
ist." It  follows,  scenically,  the  beaten  track,  though 
with  certain  modifications  of  lighting  and  increased 
simplicity  due  to  the  influence  of  the  new  stagecraft. 
Of  its  kind,  it  is  a  very  handsome  production,  how- 
ever, one  of  the  best  we  have  seen.  Where  his 
"Othello"  differs  from  tradition  is  chiefly  in  Mr. 
Faversham's  own  impersonation  of  lago,  and  the 
consequent  hue  that  gives  to  the  entire  play.  It  is 
a  novel,  refreshing,  stimulating  impersonation,  and 
it  gives  the  drama  a  new  vitality,  a  new  holding 

211 


212  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

power.  We  think  this  ambitious  actor  has  never 
done  anything  better. 

The  keynote  of  his  lago  is  humor.  Unquestion- 
ably, it  sounds  rather  startling,  this  suggestion  of 
humor  in  relation  to  one  of  the  grimmest  and  most 
relentless  of  tragedies.  But,  after  all,  perhaps  it  is 
even  more  tragic  to  murder  your  wife  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  a  humorist  than  a  solemn  plotter.  Othello 
was  made  quite  as  unhappy,  and  Desdemona  was 
no  less  surely  slaughtered.  We  have,  besides,  the 
bard's  own  authority  that  a  man  may  smile  and  smile 
and  be  a  villain. 

Every  actor,  however,  must  be  conceded  the  right 
to  visualize  a  character  for  himself.  Mr.  Faver- 
sham  said  recently,  to  the  writer:  "I  have  always 
seen  lago  as  a  humorist.  I  have  never  been  able 
to  conceive  of  him  in  any  other  way.  Tradition 
may  declare  that  he  should  be  made  a  Machiavellian 
plotter,  a  subtle,  sinister  creature;  but  I  could  never 
see  him  so.  In  the  first  place,  it  always  seemed  to 
me  that  if  he  had  been  such  a  person,  everybody 
would  have  seen  through  him,  even  the  honest, 
stupid  Moor.  He  couldn't  have  continued  to  fool 
them  all,  to  hold  the  title  of  'the  honest  lago.'  He 
succeeded  in  his  villainies,  it  always  seemed  to  me, 
because  he  was  gay,  humorous,  light-hearted,  you 


FINDING  THE  JOKE  IN  "OTHELLO"  213 

might  say  dashing.  I  will  confess  that  I've  always 
read  'Othello'  with  a  smile.  It  seemed  to  me  full 
of  comedy.  Moreover,  lago  was  an  Italian — an 
Italian  of  the  Renaissance.  You've  only  to  read 
Cellini  to  realize  something  of  the  lack  of  conscience 
in  the  gay  days  of  the  period.  I  have  an  idea  that 
my  lago  is  really  more  truly  Italian  than  most  of 
the  lagos  of  tradition,  whatever  else  may  be  said 
for  or  against  it." 

Mr.  Faversham  might  also  have  added,  we  fancy, 
that  he  realized  certain  of  his  own  limitations  (for 
every  personality  has  its  limitations),  and  knew  that 
he  could  play  lago  more  effectively  as  a  gay  blade 
of  the  Renaissance  than  as  such  a  sinister  creature 
as  we  can  fancy  George  Arliss  making  him,  or  such 
a  creature  of  darting,  insinuating  evil  as  Booth  made 
him.  At  any  rate,  he  has  chosen  a  definite  concep- 
tion of  the  character,  and  he  has  stuck  to  it.  The 
justification,  after  all,  is  the  effect  achieved. 

That  effect  is  vivid  and  admirable.  The  play, 
indeed,  as  Mr.  Faversham  says  it  seems  to  him, 
seems  to  the  audience  oddly  sprightly.  lago,  in  con- 
trast to  the  slow,  rather  ponderous  Moor,  is  a 
creation  Othello  might  well  have  failed  to  under- 
stand. How  could  anyone  so  gay  and  gracious  be 
of  evil  mind*?  It  is  small  wonder  Othello  did  not 


214  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

see  through  him.  The  audience  does  not  see 
through  him  for  two  acts,  at  least.  It  is  only 
gradually  that  we,  out  front,  realize  the  evil  of  the 
man,  begin  to  get  a  clear  conception  of  the  character 
Mr.  Faversham  is  painting.  He  takes  his  own  dia- 
bolical wickedness  so  lightly!  And  yet,  as  we  see 
that  wickedness  working,  as  we  behold  the  terrible 
results  on  others,  it  is  no  less  wicked,  no  less  hor- 
rible, in  its  tragic  effect.  This  lago  engages  us, 
wins  our  interest,  almost  charms  us ;  as  he  must  have 
done  Othello,  or  the  plot  falls  through.  But  we  are 
no  more  sorry  to  see  his  final  fate  than  if  he  were 
played  like  the  villain  of  melodrama.  It  is  an  im- 
personation which  makes  for  tragedy  without  being 
itself  tragic,  certainly  without  being  theatrical. 
And  it  is  more  Italian  than  any  lago  the  present 
writer  has  ever  seen.  It  is  graceful,  picturesque, 
fluent,  cavalier — a  figure  from  the  Renaissance. 

The  result  of  such  an  lago,  as  we  have  said,  is  to 
make  the  whole  drama  seem  curiously  sprightly, 
until,  of  course,  the  final  momentum  has  been  gath- 
ered and  we  are  rushing  toward  the  end.  There  can 
be  no  question  but  this  is  an  advantage  with  a  mod- 
ern audience.  To  tragedy  undiluted,  especially  in 
verse,  we  are  not  attuned.  When  Shakespeare  can 
be  thus  "modernized"  (to  employ  a  perhaps  mean- 


FINDING  THE  JOKE  IN  "OTHELLO"    215 

ingless  phrase ! )  without  doing  violence  to  his  essen- 
tial message,  there  can  be  no  reasonable  objection. 

Mr.  Faversham's  stage  direction,  as  well  as  his 
lago,  has  contributed  to  this  end.  The  action  never 
grows  dull,  never  fails  to  bite.  Each  episode  is 
carefully  handled  for  the  full  dramatic  effect,  not 
slurred  over  to  hurry  on  to  the  next  virtuoso  pas- 
sage for  the  star.  Cassio  (well  played  by  Pedro  de 
Cordoba)  enacts  his  drunken  scene,  for  example, 
with  as  much  realism  as  if  he  were  G.  M.  Cohan  in 
Act  I  of  "Broadway  Jones."  The  scene  is  fully 
"worked  out."  The  result  of  such  staging  is  that 
the  whole  drama  seems  more  alive,  more  vital.  Vi- 
tality, the  power  to  hold  the  attention,  are  the 
greatest  merits,  perhaps,  of  this  production. 

R.  D.  MacLean  plays  Othello,  and  plays  him  with 
a  certain  slow-witted  dignity  which  is  an  excellent 
foil  to  lago's  sprightliness.  Mr.  MacLean  has  real 
personal  distinction,  a  glorious  voice  (especially 
when  he  isn't  forcing  it),  a  feeling  for  verse,  and 
a  rare  power  of  phrasing  verse  in  such  a  way  that 
the  sense  is  colloquial,  while  the  sound  is  sheer  music 
— that  is,  it  is  plausible  human  speech  and  poetry  at 
the  same  time.  His  chief  lack  is  a  certain  distinc- 
tion of  enunciation,  hard  to  define.  He  does  not 
mispronounce,  but,  none  the  less,  his  speech  misses 


216  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

the  fine  beauty  of  Forbes-Robertson's.  Miss  Loftus 
is  rather  a  colorless  Desdemona  (which  is  possibly 
not  unfitting).  Miss  Constance  Collier,  however, 
as  Emilia,  supplies  color  for  them  both.  We  have 
spoken  already  of  Mr.  De  Cordoba's  excellent  Cas- 
sio.  This  actor  was  at  the  New  Theater.  The 
New  Theater  may  have  failed,  but  it  is  noticeable 
that  all  the  young  players  in  its  company  have 
gained  greatly  by  those  two  years  of  repertory. 


MISS  ANGLIN  AND  THE  BARD 

Spring,  1914. 

If  the  ancient  theatrical  saw  were  true,  that 
"Shakespeare  spells  ruin,"  a  composite  picture  of  a 
group  of  our  leading  players  at  the  end  of  the  cur- 
rent season  would  closely  resemble  a  photograph  of 
Pompeii.  It  is  doubtful  if  even  in  the  "palmy 
days"  (whenever  they  were)  Shakespeare  was  so 
frequently  acted  as  in  America  during  the  winter  of 
1913-14.  It  has  been  often  said  that  Germany  sees 
more  Shakespeare  in  a  season  than  England  almost 
in  a  decade;  but  this  cannot  be  affirmed  at  present 
of  the  United  States  and  Canada. 

During  the  season  now  closing,  Sothern  and  Mar- 
lowe, Margaret  Anglin,  William  Faversham,  Robert 
B.  Mantell,  and  the  Benson  Company  have  been 
presenting  Shakespearean  dramas  almost  exclusive- 
ly, and  Forbes-Robertson  has  been  devoting  half 
his  repertoire  to  them,  with  his  "Hamlet"  probably 
the  most  popular  performance  now  on  our  stage. 

If  we  give  each  company  an  average  season  of  thirty 

217 


218  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

weeks,  eight  performances  a  week,  and  add  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  performances  for  Forbes-Robertson, 
we  find  that  there  will  have  been  one  thousand  three 
hundred  and  twenty  performances  of  Shakespeare 
in  the  United  States  and  Canada  during  the  season 
just  closing,  without  including  a  great  many  scat- 
tered productions  by  stock  companies,  and  possibly 
some  by  actors  of  lesser  note.  The  number  of  plays 
performed  was  nearly  a  score. 

Shakespeare  may  spell  ruin,  but  there  appear  to 
be  a  great  many  players  and  managers  eager  for  de- 
struction! Also,  Germany  may  lead  England  in 
the  number  of  its  Shakespearean  productions,  but  it 
will  have  to  hustle  to  keep  up  with  North  America. 
Without  much  question,  the  total  number  of  such 
productions  on  this  continent  during  the  current 
theatrical  year  will  be  close  to  two  thousand.  The 
figures  are  interesting,  and  they  will  come  as  an 
awful  blow  to  the  melancholy  Jaqueses  of  criticism, 
who  periodically  wail  the  passing  of  the  Bard  of 
Avon. 

There  are  several  reasons  for  this  widespread  pres- 
entation of  Shakespeare's  plays,  over  and  above  the 
fundamental  reason  that  they  are,  all  things  con- 
sidered, the  best  plays  ever  written.  For  one  thing, 
they  have  been  played  so  long,  and  by  so  many  dis- 


MISS  ANGLIN  AND  THE  BARD      219 

tinguished  actors,  that  they  have  become  a  standard 
test  of  histrionic  ability,  and  hence  a  challenge  to 
all  ambitious  artists.  The  actor  who  essays  Hamlet 
invites  comparison  at  once  with  Garrick  and  Booth 
and  Forbes-Robertson — with  the  greatest  of  his  pro- 
fession. Not  only  is  he  attempting  a  part  which 
calls  for  all  the  charm,  all  the  depth,  all  the  vocal 
skill  which  he  can  command  (and  probably  a  great 
deal  more),  and  which  richly  repays  his  successful 
accomplishment;  but  he  is  deliberately  inviting  the 
severest  of  comparisons — comparisons  which  by  their 
very  severity  palliate  his  failure  and  immensely 
heighten  his  success.  To  the  ambition  of  the  actor, 
Shakespeare  is  a  perpetual  allure. 

Again,  Shakespeare  is  an  object  of  veneration  to 
the  public,  and  a  topic  of  study  in  all  our  schools. 
There  is  always  a  large  number  of  people  who  will 
go  to  see  his  dramas  acted  almost  as  a  matter  of 
principle,  and  to  them  the  actor  or  actress  who 
mounts  these  dramas  gains  in  dignity,  is  more  highly 
thought  of.  Indeed,  there  was  a  time,  and  not  so 
long  ago,  (nor  has  it  entirely  passed  yet),  when 
many  good  people  would  admit  that  an  actor  was 
respectable  only  when  he  played  Shakespeare! 
Similarly,  because  Shakespeare  is  studied  in  the 
schools,  there  is  a  perpetually  renewed  audience  of 


22O 

young  people  for  his  plays,  everywhere.  It  is  re- 
newed each  year,  in  fact.  No  other  dramatist  has 
so  sure  a  body  of  auditors,  nor  one  which  awards 
so  much  credit  to  the  actor.  Those  players  and 
managers  clever  enough  to  realize  this  fact  have  seen 
that  Shakespeare,  far  from  spelling  ruin,  is  a  capital 
investment. 

Then,  too,  of  course  the  Shakespearean  plays  offer 
almost  endless  possibilities  (as  well  as  perplexities) 
of  stagecraft,  scene-painting,  costuming,  lighting. 
Saturated  as  they  are  with  poetry,  glimmering  with 
romance  or  gloomed  with  tragedy,  they  give  unlim- 
ited scope  to  the  imaginative  producer.  Written  in 
many  scenes,  for  a  stage  practically  bare,  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  play  them  now  in  their  entirety  unless 
we  either  revert  to  the  bare  stage  again  or,  like  the 
Germans,  build  stages  which  revolve  or  sink,  mak- 
ing the  innumerable  changes  practicable.  But  they 
are  all  the  more  a  challenge,  then,  to  the  modern 
producer.  He  wants  to  see  how  much  of  the  text 
he  can  preserve.  He  wants  to  see  how  far  he  can 
simplify  his  scenery,  still  keeping  it  illusive,  or  else 
how  far  he  can  make  his  stage  pictures  live  up  to 
the  demands  of  the  poetry.  He  knows  the  material 
he  is  to  illustrate  is  the  greatest  in  the  world,  and 
if  any  plays  can  inspire  him,  these  can.  To  him, 


MISS  ANGLIN  AND  THE  BARD      221 

no  less  than  to  the  actors,  they  are  a  challenge  and 
a  spur. 

These  things  considered  then,  it  is  small  wonder, 
after  all,  that  Shakespeare  flourishes  on  our  stage 
and  ambitious  players  desire  to  act  his  dramas 
(dramas  which  have  the  additional  merit  on  the 
road  of  familiarity,  so  that  the  suffering  public  can 
know  beforehand  what  they  are  going  to  see).  This 
year  William  Faversham  has  placed  two  more 
Shakespearean  roles  to  his  credit — lago  and  Romeo 
— and  is  now  presenting  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  and 
"Othello"  in  addition  to  "Julius  Csesar."  Follow- 
ing his  example,  Miss  Margaret  Anglin  (who,  like 
him,  was  once  a  member  of  the  Empire  Theater 
Stock  Company)  has  now  joined  the  classic  ranks 
and  in  a  single  season,  by  labors  which  might  well 
stagger  a  player  of  the  stronger  sex,  has  achieved  a 
repertoire  of  four  Shakespearean  dramas  and,  more- 
over, has  mounted  them  according  to  the  newer 
stagecraft.  Her  achievement  is  truly  remarkable, 
and  the  toil  involved  must  have  been  tremendous. 
Probably  no  manager  would  ever  have  undertaken 
it  for  her.  But  her  reward  will  surely  be  great,  also, 
for  she  will  now  occupy  a  position  of  dignity  and 
leadership  which  nothing  else  could  have  brought 
her. 


222  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Margaret  Anglin  was  born  in  Ottawa,  Canada, 
in  1876.  Her  father  was  speaker  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  her  brother  is  now  Chief  Justice. 
Needless  to  say,  her  family  were  not  theatrical. 
But  she  early  faced  her  personal  destiny,  which 
doubtless  required  some  courage,  and  went  to  New 
York  to  study  for  the  stage.  She  made  her  first 
professional  appearance  in  1894,  as  Madeline  West 
in  "Shenandoah,"  and  presently  joined  the  company 
of  James  O'Neill,  where  she  played  many  parts, 
including  Ophelia.  Later  she  played  Rosalind  in 
her  native  Canada.  It  was  in  1898  that  a  set  of 
curious  chances  made  her  the  Roxane  in  Mansfield's 
production  of  "Cyrano  de  Bergerac,"  and  her  New 
York  reputation  began.  She  became  the  popular 
leading  woman  of  the  Empire  Theater  Company, 
where  her  Mrs.  Dane  in  "Mrs.  Dane's  Defense"  at- 
tracted wide  attention  and  seemed  to  doom  her  to 
a  career  of  "emotional"  roles.  Even  her  perform- 
ance in  "The  Great  Divide"  but  deepened  the  pop- 
ular impression. 

But  Miss  Anglin  went  to  Australia,  and  tried  out 
her  ripened  powers  in  Shakespeare  there.  She  came 
back  to  America  and  played  a  little  comedy  part  in 
"Green  Stockings,"  by  way  of  contrast  to  a  per- 
formance of  Sophocles's  "Electra"  at  the  Greek  the- 


MISS  ANGLIN  AND  THE  BARD      223 

ater  of  the  University  of  California.  Then  she  cut 
loose  from  managers  altogether,  took  up  the  reins  of 
her  own  destiny  and  early  last  autumn,  in  the  West, 
she  produced  "The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,"  "Twelfth 
Night,"  "As  You  Like  it,"  and  "Antony  and  Cleo- 
patra," with  scenery  and  costumes  designed  by  Liv- 
ingston Platt,  in  strong  contrast  to  the  usual  hack- 
neyed settings.  She  was  the  stage  manager  for  all 
these  plays,  as  well  as  the  leading  player;  and  she 
brought  this  large  and  exacting  repertoire  back  across 
Canada  to  the  Eastern  seaboard  last  winter,  in  tri- 
umph. The  mere  physical  feat  is  impressive.  We 
think  Miss  Anglin  is  entitled  to  a  vote ! 

The  present  writer  saw  all  four  productions  in  as 
many  days,  in  Montreal.  At  that  time  Miss  Anglin 
herself  was  best  as  Katherine  in  "The  Taming  of  the 
Shrew,"  and  the  entire  production  of  that  irrepress- 
ible farce  was  in  the  most  consistently  sustained  key 
— a  key  of  high  spirits,  innocent  mirth,  and  blithe 
romance.  In  Eric  Blind,  Miss  Anglin  had  a  Petru- 
chio  of  rare  physical  charm,  unflagging  good  nature, 
and  underlying  tenderness.  His  chief  fault  is  a 
lack  of  vocal  nimbleness  and  variety.  She  herself 
is  the  best  Shrew  since  Ada  Rehan  (who  was  never 
Shakespeare's  Shrew,  but  a  very  wonderful  person, 
none  the  less).  She  is  brilliantly  vitriolic,  edged 


224  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

like  a  saber,  and  she  is  properly  and  convincingly 
subdued,  but  only  after  a  tussle  that  kindles  the 
blood.  She  is  not  so  regal  and  magnificent  as  Miss 
Rehan,  but,  unless  our  memory  is  at  fault,  she  pos- 
sesses a  certain  tart  humanity  the  elder  actress 
lacked. 

In  staging  the  play,  she  followed  the  usual  custom 
of  omitting  the  Induction,  which  is  always  regret- 
table. 

The  acting  of  "Twelfth  Night"  by  Miss  Anglin 
will  probably  cause  some  quarrel.  She  evidently 
hasn't  a  very  high  opinion  of  Viola.  There  are 
others,  to  be  sure,  who  think  of  Viola  as  rather  color- 
less, at  any  rate  as  lacking  in  initiative  and  dash; 
but  it  has  been  the  custom  to  play  her  with  more 
gusto  than  Miss  Anglin  permits  herself.  We  fancy 
that  the  actress,  in  her  desire  to  differentiate  between 
Viola  and  Rosalind,  those  two  heroines  in  trousers, 
tones  down  the  former  into  a  meekness  the  play  did 
not  intend — for,  after  all,  it  is  a  frolic.  But  her 
impersonation  is  deliberate,  and  she  does  what  she 
sets  out  to  do,  though  here,  again,  she  falls  some- 
times into  the  error  of  sentimentalizing  the  verse, 
instead  of  letting  the  beauty  of  it  tell  its  own  story 
by  the  clearest  and  simplest  of  readings.  "She 
never  told  her  love — ,"  as  spoken  by  Julia  Marlowe 


MISS  ANGLIN  AND  THE  BARD      225 

was  a  speech  of  marvelous  and  touching  felicity  and 
pathos.  Miss  Anglin  misses  the  lyric  felicity, 
and  not  a  little  of  the  pathos.  Perhaps,  after  all, 
the  satisfactory  impersonation  of  Viola  comes  down, 
in  the  end,  to  a  question  of  personality. 

Miss  Anglin's  Rosalind  can  probably  be  imagined 
by  those  familiar  with  her  acting  in  lighter  parts 
in  the  modem  drama.  Rosalind  has  a  certain  ex- 
ecutive directness  (she  was,  after  all,  Mr.  Shaw's 
Ann  three  hundred  years  in  advance  of  her  times), 
and  a  gay  humor  and  self-confident  poise  which  Miss 
Anglin  must  find  congenial.  She  gives  every  evi- 
dence that  she  does,  at  any  rate,  and  her  charm,  her 
high  spirits,  her  beauty,  are  infectious. 

Miss  Anglin's  least  successful  performance  was 
of  Cleopatra — oddly  enough  the  most  emotional 
role  of  the  four.  We  fancy  that  she  herself  is  least 
satisfied  with  it,  and  probably  will  not  hazard  it  in 
New  York  till  she  has  further  developed  it.*  Her 
performance  at  present  is  based  on  a  conception  of 
Egypt's  queen  which  hardly  squares  with  the  popular 
idea.  When  all  is  said,  Cleopatra  was  the  supreme 
harlot,  and  so  far  as  the  play  is  a  love  tragedy,  it 
is  the  tragedy  of  harlotry — though  glorified  by  im- 

•Miss  Anglin  presented  only  "As  You  Like  It,"  and  "The 
Taming  of  the  Shrew"  in  New  York,  at  the  Hudson  Theatre, 
in  March,  1914. 


226  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

mortal  verse  and  pageantried  with  armies  and  with 
empires.  Miss  Anglin,  however,  does  not  so  play 
it.  She  keeps  her  vision  fixed  on  Cleopatra,  the 
queen,  and  a  certain  haste  and  hectic  heat,  a  certain 
race  of  passion  which  is  plainly  enough  indicated  in 
the  mad  alternations  of  the  queen's  moods  and  which 
in  reality  makes  the  tragedy  a  swift  one,  are  lacking 
from  her  performance — so  lacking  that  the  tragedy 
becomes  slow.  The  queen  is  as  long  a-dying  as  poor 
Tristan  in  the  opera,  and  Miss  Anglin  falls  fre- 
quently into  an  error  which  we  would  never  have 
predicted — the  error  of  intoning  verse,  the  ancient 
trick  of  "elocution."  Alas,  we  fear  there  is  truth 
in  the  saying  that  no  lady  can  play  Cleopatra ! 

The  settings  and  costumes  for  all  of  Miss  Ang- 
lin's  productions  were  made  by  Livingston  Platt, 
an  American  artist  who  studied  abroad,  and  on  his 
return  made  his  first  designs  for  the  amateur  Toy 
Theater  in  Boston,  and  then  for  John  Craig's  stock 
company  in  the  same  city.  Because  his  settings  are 
in  themselves  lovely,  but  still  more  because  their 
employment  by  Miss  Anglin  marks  the  first  attempt 
on  a  considerable  scale  to  apply  the  newer  stage- 
craft to  Shakespearean  production  in  this  country, 
a  somewhat  extended  discussion  of  them  in  this  place 
seems  worth  while. 


MISS  ANGLIN  AND  THE  BARD      227 

The  key  to  his  scheme  is  found  in  the  fore-stage. 
Some  six  or  eight  feet  back  of  the  proscenium,  on 
either  side,  are  hung  negative,  plain  brown  draperies. 
Between  them  and  the  proscenium  are  thrust  out  two 
entrance  doorways,  solidly  built,  one  on  either  side. 
Each  play  has  its  own  set  of  doorways,  and  its  own 
border,  running  across  above.  For  "The  Taming 
of  the  Shrew"  and  "Twelfth  Night"  these  entrances 
are  Italian,  for  "As  You  Like  It"  nondescript,  for 
"Antony  and  Cleopatra"  heavy  and  columnar. 
Similarly,  the  four  connecting  borders  are  painted  in 
the  corresponding  architectural  styles. 

Now,  for  every  "front  scene"  a  drop  is  lowered 
just  behind  these  fore-stage  doors,  boxed  in  by  the 
doors,  the  brown  hangings  and  the  appropriate 
border.  For  Italian  rooms,  the  drops  are  large 
tapestries,  for  outdoor  sets  sometimes  a  mere  picture, 
sometimes  a  double  drop  showing  a  landscape  over  a 
wall,  or  through  an  entrance.  The  two  proscenium 
doors  seem  part  of  the  proscenium  arch  in  the  outside 
scenes  and  do  not  destroy  illusion;  and  for  the  in- 
teriors they  aid  illusion.  They  are  extremely 
effective.  But  their  chief  merit  lies  in  this — while 
the  "front  scene"  is  being  played  in  a  really  illusive 
setting,  so  that  it  does  not  seem  like  a  makeshift, 
the  large  full  scene  to  follow  is  always  being  put  in 


228  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

place,  and  consequently  there  are  no  waits.  Scene 
follows  scene,  act  follows  act,  with  great  speed,  but 
without  the  old-fashioned  effect  of  makeshift  set- 
tings for  alternate  scenes.  In  reality,  it  is  a  glorified 
version  of  the  scheme  so  common  in  the  old-time 
melodrama. 

When  the  drop  rises  behind  the  fore-stage  the  full 
set  is  not  only  framed  by  the  proscenium,  but  it  is 
matted,  as  it  were,  by  the  architectural  entrances,  the 
brown  hangings,  the  border.  It  is  still  further  con- 
fined, set  off,  by  a  framework  exactly  in  its  own 
mood  and  period.  Set  a  Greek  scene  directly  behind 
the  rococo  I'art  nouveau  of  the  New  Amsterdam 
proscenium,  for  example,  and  the  contrast  is  ridic- 
ulously sharp.  But  with  Mr.  Platt's  scheme  the 
eye  is  led  in  past  the  theater  proscenium,  which  is 
forgotten  before  the  real  picture  is  reached. 

As  for  those  pictures,  they  are,  for  the  most  part, 
extremely  simple.  Compared  with  a  setting  of 
Shakespeare  by  Irving  or  Tree,  or  even  Mr.  Sothern, 
they  are  sometimes  a  mere  nothing.  Yet  they  are 
illusive  and  lovely,  and  several  of  them  are  genuine 
works  of  art  quite  by  themselves,  pictures  the  eye 
dwells  on  with  pleasure,  pictures  which  fire  the 
imagination,  which  at  last  live  up  to  the  magic  of 
the  verse. 


MISS  ANGLIN  AND  THE  BARD      229 

Such  will  be  the  duke's  palace  in  "Twelfth  Night" 
when  Miss  Anglin  gets  to  a  theater  with  a  modern 
lighting  plant  (if  one  exists  in  America).  It  is 
utterly  simple — nothing  on  the  stage  but  a  couch, 
and  behind  that  three  gracefully  arched  windows 
letting  out  on  southern  landscape  with  poplars  afar 
off.  The  color  and  lights  are  all — a  pearly  room, 
sunlight  streaming  in  through  the  windows,  the  red 
robes  of  the  duke  upon  his  couch,  a  flash  of  gold,  and 
then  the  gray  of  Viola.  No  foots,  of  course,  should 
be  used  here,  though  they  had  to  be  in  Montreal. 
The  light  should  all  stream  in  from  the  rear.  A 
similar  room,  better  lighted,  made  the  last  scene  of 
"The  Shrew."  Here  the  light  fell  on  the  glass  of 
the  banquet  table,  on  a  heap  of  yellow  fruit,  on  the 
rich  Italian  costumes  of  the  courtiers,  and  it  was 
so  bright,  so  colorful,  so  beautifully  composed,  that 
it  might  almost  have  been  a  Paul  Veronese  painting 
come  to  life.  Again,  in  "Twelfth  Night,"  we  are 
shown  a  scene  at  the  palace  consisting  entirely  of  a 
narrow  back  drop,  not  twenty  feet  wide,  on  which 
is  painted  a  garden  shrine  at  the  end  of  a  poplar 
alley,  and  which  is  flanked  by  great  brown  curtains. 
On  the  stage  is  a  couch,  a  tiny  table,  a  small  foun- 
tain of  exotic  design,  not  over  two  feet  high.  There 
is  nothing  else,  not  even  a  wing  piece.  Yet,  in 


230  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Montreal,  the  audience  applauded  this  set  as  the  cur- 
tain rose !  It  is  simplified  scenery  with  a  vengeance, 
yet  pictorially  beautiful  and  entirely  satisfying. 

But  it  is  in  "Antony  and  Cleopatra"  that  Mr. 
Platt  has  done  his  best  work.  His  Roman  scenes 
are  for  the  most  part  set  on  half  stage  and  made  by 
hangings  and  a  few  Roman  benches.  They  are,  of 
course,  chiefly  tents.  A  bit  of  wall  with  a  drop 
behind  is  Antony's  garden.  Behind  them  the  great, 
towering  yellow  screens,  out  of  which  Mr.  Platt 
builds  his  dream  of  Egypt,  are-  set  up  and  left  un- 
disturbed. 

Here  again  in  his  full  sets  he  uses  no  wing  pieces 
and  no  sky  borders.  The  screens  (which  by  a  simple 
short  panel  set  at  right  angles  on  either  edge  look 
tremendously  solid)  both  block  the  sides  and  tower 
up  suggestively  out  of  sight,  making  sky  borders 
needless.  They  are  shifted,  as  Craig  shifted  his  in 
the  Moscow  "Hamlet,"  to  make  either  Cleopatra's 
palace  or  the  interior  of  her  monument,  though  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  with  Mr.  Platt  the  screens 
are  all.  He  also  employs  realistic  furniture  and 
sections  of  scenery  and  painted  drops.  Pale  yellow- 
ish brown,  like  aged  stone,  they  rear  aloft  in  the 
monument  interior  with  a  ghostly,  dim  blue  radi- 
ance in  dagger  blades  between  them,  and  amid  the 


MISS  ANGLIN  AND  THE  BARD      231 

shadows  at  their  base  the  figures  mysteriously  come 
and  go,  the  reds  and  greens  and  purples  of  their 
robes  like  dragon  flies  in  the  dusk.  In  the  monu- 
ment set  the  sides  are  boxed  in,  with  a  window  on 
the  right  admitting  a  blue  radiance,  and  at  the  rear 
two  yellow  walls,  eight  feet  high,  nearly  meeting  at 
a  flight  of  steps  in  the  center.  Dim  incense  burners 
flicker  at  the  feet  of  two  gods  upon  these  walls,  and 
at  the  base  of  them  the  red  robe  of  Charmian  is  like 
a  splotch  of  blood.  Cleopatra  dies  in  the  blue  radi- 
ance from  the  window,  and  the  purple  robe  thrown 
over  Antony's  body  is  like  spilled  wine.  Out  of  the 
mystery  at  the  base  of  the  towering  screens  comes 
Csesar  in  scarlet  and  looks  upon  the  scene. 

But  even  more  imaginative  and  simpler  is  the 
setting  for  Cleopatra's  palace  roof,  where  the  queen 
receives  her  first  messenger,  which  Miss  Anglin 
makes  the  first  scene  of  Act  II.  Here  there  is  abso- 
lutely nothing  on  the  stage  but  a  dim,  towering 
screen  at  either  side  to  mask  the  wings,  a  low  wall 
nearly  across  the  back,  made  by  laying  one  screen 
on  edge,  a  higher  section  of  wall  on  the  right,  where- 
on reclines  a  figure  in  black  silhouette,  and  beyond 
that  the  night  sky.  The  illusion  of  height  and  of 
desert  sand  below  and  far  off  an  unseen  horizon  is 
extraordinary.  Cleopatra  sits  on  the  wall  and  the 


232  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

moonlight  makes  strange  pools  of  color  with  her 
robes  and  jewels.  Mardian,  the  eunuch,  shines 
ebony  in  the  silver  illumination,  and  his  gestures 
are  those  of  an  Egyptian  relief.  The  silhouette 
raises  up  on  its  elbows  and  emits  a  long-drawn,  start- 
ling cry,  answered  from  far  off  and  far  below  by  the 
hail  of  the  messenger.  The  scene,  of  course,  de- 
pends chiefly  on  the  electrician,  for  the  actual  set- 
tings are  ridiculously  simple  and  can  be  put  in  place 
in  forty-eight  seconds — three  or  four  screens,  with 
no  furniture  whatever.  Yet  the  audiences  applaud 
it  instinctively.  It  is  marvelously  lovely.  It  drips 
with  the  hot  Egyptian  night,  it  carries  the  beholder  at 
once  up  on  the  roof  top  above  the  desert  plains. 

Curiously  enough,  Mr.  Platt  has  been  least  suc- 
cessful with  "As  You  Like  It,"  the  most  romantic 
of  the  plays.  Here  he  has  no  architectural  features 
to  work  with  or  to  use  as  wing  screens,  and,  being 
without  a  semi-circular  horizon  or  sufficient  height 
of  fly  gallery  for  unscreened  drops  (height  cannot 
be  depended  on  in  provincial  cities,  and  much  of 
Mr.  Platt's  scenery  had  to  be  cut  down  for  the  road), 
he  has  had  to  resort  in  his  forest  sets  to  the  clumsy 
expedients  of  tradition,  such  as  woodland  wing 
pieces  and  foliage  lowered  on  a  tennis  net  to  "solid" 
tree  trunks  above  papier  mache  mossy  stones.  But 


MISS  ANGLIN  AND  THE  BARD      233 

at  least  he  has  avoided  stage  grass  and  paper  flowers ! 
Perhaps  his  forests  will  be  better  when  they  can  be 
lighted,  as  he  intended,  from  above.  But  it  seems 
to  be  a  fact  that  the  outdoor  set  is  more  difficult  for 
the  new  impressionists  to  manage  than  the  interior 
or  partially  outdoor.  They  have  not  yet  solved  the 
problem  in  any  production  the  present  writer  has 
seen  save  in  the  case  of  a  desert  plain  or  other  abso- 
lutely waste  space  to  a  low,  distant  horizon. 

However,  the  total  impression  of  these  four  pro- 
ductions is  one  of  great  beauty,  poetic  illusion,  and 
eminent  fitness.  Furthermore,  Miss  Anglin  has  pre- 
served a  goodly  proportion  of  the  texts,  and  still  con- 
trived to  close  the  plays  at  a  decent  hour.  She  and 
Mr.  Platt  have  demonstrated  that  it  is  quite  possible, 
then,  to  mount  Shakespeare  with  adequate  scenery 
and  without  long  waits  or  textual  slaughter,  even 
on  the  American  stage,  handicapped  as  it  is  by  lack 
of  mechanical  equipment.  They  both  deserve  our 
gratitude. 


DO  YOU  BELIEVE  IN  GOLD  FAIRIES? 

"A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  —  Wallaces 
Theater,  February  i6> 


Granville  Barker  has  now  mounted  "A  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream,"  at  Wallack's  Theater,  and 
shown  us,  perhaps,  the  most  unusual  of  all  his  pro- 
ductions. It  will  alternate  with  "Androcles  and 
the  Lion"  throughout  the  season,  other  plays  being 
added  to  the  repertory  later.  It  is  amusing  to  see 
the  confusion  which  has  resulted.  The  poor  New 
York  public,  totally  unused  to  repertory  since  Mans- 
field died,  can't  get  it  through  their  silly  heads  that 
if  a  new  play  has  been  put  on,  the  old  one  hasn't 
been  withdrawn. 

There  are  two  outstanding  features  of  Mr.  Bark- 
er's production  of  Shakespeare's  musical  comedy. 
The  first  is  the  fact  that  the  method  of  staging  per- 
mits the  entire  text  to  be  played  without  a  single 
cut,  so  that  for  the  first  time  in  the  present  writer's 
experience  the  story  emerges  as  a  coherent,  clear  and 
swiftly  moving  tale.  This  always  does  happen 

234 


GOLD  FAIRIES  235 

when  a  Shakespearean  play  is  acted  without  cuts. 
The  bard  knew  his  business.  He  didn't  write  scenes 
merely  for  the  fun  of  it ;  he  wrote  them  to  further  his 
story.  The  only  proper  way  to  stage  Shakespeare 
is  the  way  which  permits  the  use  of  the  entire 
text. 

Hitherto  it  was  supposed  this  could  only  be  ac- 
complished on  a  bare  stage,  or  else  one  which  was 
equipped  with  elaborate  mechanical  devices,  such  as 
are  found  in  Germany.  Mr.  Barker,  without  re- 
sorting to  Reinhardt's  revolving  stage,  and  without 
stripping  down  to  the  bare  boards,  either,  has  solved 
the  problem. 

The  second  outstanding  feature  of  his  production 
(which  was  "decorated"  by  Norman  Wilkinson)  is 
its  incessant,  bizarre,  pictorial  appeal.  The  eye  is 
constantly  surprised,  constantly  delighted,  and 
though  many  of  the  settings  are  so  different  from  any 
Shakespearean  settings  we  have  been  accustomed  to 
that  they  rather  disturb  the  conventional-minded, 
nevertheless  before  the  play  is  over  they  have  estab- 
lished their  own  mood  and  even  if  this  mood  isn't 
what  we  have  been  accustomed  to  call  Elizabethan, 
it  is  at  least  so  potent  that  the  play  takes  on  a  new 
lease  of  life.  You  leave  the  theater  a  bit  bewil- 
dered, but  admitting  that,  after  all,  you  never  knew 


236  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

before  that  "A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  could 
be  such  an  interesting  play. 

When  the  audience  gathers  in  the  theater,  it  sees 
the  forestage  (built  out  as  far  as  old  Row  C),  bathed 
in  white  light,  and  hanging  just  inside  the  prosce- 
nium, framed  by  a  second  proscenium  of  plain  gold, 
like  a  box,  a  curtain  of  whitish  color,  with  a  frail 
green  and  gold  floral  design  upon  it.  Just  in  front 
is  a  black  seat,  on  a  slightly  raised  platform.  As 
trumpets  sound,  four  negro  slaves  enter,  by  the  pas- 
sage made  by  the  elimination  of  the  stage  box,  and 
they  are  followed  by  Theseus,  Hippolyta  and  the 
court.  The  costumes  are  not  the  traditional  Greek, 
but  are  full  of  barbaric  color,  which  is  perhaps  more 
nearly  authentic.  The  duke  and  his  lady  seat  them- 
selves on  the  black  seat,  and  the  play  begins.  Just 
as  the  entrance  has  to  be  made  with  a  certain  amount 
of  pageantry  and  music,  so  the  stage  has  to  be 
cleared  in  the  same  way.  For  the  next  scene,  all 
that  is  required  is  the  raising  of  the  curtain.  Six 
inches  behind  it  is  another  curtain,  painted  with  a 
quaint,  formal  representation  of  a  window  or  two 
and  a  glimpse  of  the  city.  It  is  a  cloth  curtain, 
hanging  in  folds.  Before  this  Bottom  and  his  fel- 
lows plan  their  play.  Then  this  curtain  also  rises, 
and  behind  it  (it  will  be  seen  that  so  far  the  real 


GOLD  FAIRIES  237 

stage,  behind  the  proscenium,  has  not  been  used  at 
all)  is  a  third  curtain,  painted  plain  Nile  green  on 
the  bottom  edge,  and  above  that  deep  blue,  spangled 
all  over  with  silver  stars  and  a  huge  moon.  The 
light  is  dimmed  down,  and  the  fairies  enter. 

The  fairies  are  the  most  bizarre  things  in  the 
entire  production.  They  are  entirely  clad  in  gold, 
with  gold  faces,  gold  hands,  gold  hair  hanging  in 
gold  curls  like  shavings  from  a  new  yellow  board. 
They  are  undeniably  strange  and  at  once  differen- 
tiated from  anything  mortal.  It  may  very  well  be 
questioned  if  they  are  the  fairies  of  Shakespeare's 
vision.  They  are  not  ethereal,  but  solid  as  gilt 
statues,  and  stiff  like  statues,  too,  moving  with 
quaint,  automatic  motions.  It  is  to  them  that  most 
of  the  objection  will  come.  Yet  they  are  undeni- 
ably tremendously  picturesque  and  undeniably  they 
do  give  the  desired  effect  of  difference.  Perhaps, 
when  we  consider  how  few  productions  of  this  play 
have  ever  been  able  to  create  the  mood  of  the  super- 
natural, these  stiff  gold  fairies  are  better  than  the 
more  conventional  representations,  even  if  they  do 
rather  orientalize  a  purely  Elizabethan  play.  Only 
Puck  is  not  in  gold.  He  is  clad  in  bright  scarlet, 
with  yellow  hair  streaming  back  like  a  comet's  tail. 

For  the  next  scene  the  full  stage  is  used  at  last. 


238  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

It  is  a  very  beautiful  and  strange  set.  Filling  al- 
most the  entire  stage  is  a  green  mound  rising  to  a 
dome  in  the  exact  center.  Above  this  dome  is  sus- 
pended a  quaint  ring,  or  wheel,  of  purple  grapes  and 
leaves.  Surrounding  it  on  all  three  sides  are  long, 
upright  strips  of  Nile  green  cloth,  between  which 
you  see  only  an  indefinite  blueness.  They  are,  pre- 
sumably, the  forest  trees.  They  go  up  out  of  sight, 
and  of  course  all  the  illumination  comes  down  from 
above.  This  is  pure  suggestion  with  a  vengeance, 
and  it  is  so  lovely  and  so  effective  that  the  audience 
bursts  into  applause.  Of  course,  the  green  mound 
is  Titania's  fairy  bower,  and  here  most  of  the  re- 
mainder of  the  action  in  the  forest  takes  place,  with 
the  characters  vanishing  and  reappearing  amid  the 
towering  strips  of  green  cloth. 

When  the  action  in  the  forest  is  over,  the  play  is 
practically  over,  too,  and  here  Mr.  Barker  makes  his 
long  break  (there  has  been  but  one  very  brief  inter- 
mission before).  It  is  long  after  ten  when  the  last 
act  is  begun.  Again  the  full  stage  is  used.  The 
forestage,  as  always,  is  bare.  From  immediately 
behind  the  proscenium  rises  a  flight  of  jet  black  steps, 
all  across  the  stage,  to  a  height  of  six  feet  or  more, 
and  on  that  elevation  stands  a  forest  of  round  silver 
columns  supporting  white  crossbeams  through  which 


GOLD  FAIRIES  239 

you  glimpse  the  night  sky.  Black  and  silver — that 
is  all.  The  duke  and  the  lovers  and  the  court  re- 
cline, Roman  fashion,  on  couches  at  the  very  front 
of  the  fore-stage,  their  backs  to  the  audience,  and 
upon  the  platform,  against  the  black  and  silver, 
Bottom  and  his  friends  enact  their  Weber  &  Fields 
burlesque.  Then  all  the  humans  depart,  and  in 
come  the  gold  fairies,  and  to  an  old  Elizabethan  air 
weave  a  dance  amid  the  forest  of  silver  pillars, 
blessing  the  house.  One  by  one  they  go  out,  like 
the  candles  in  the  "Farewell  Symphony,"  till  only 
Puck  is  left,  in  his  red  dress,  before  a  yellow  curtain 
which  has  descended,  in  a  dim  radiance,  to  speak  the 
epilogue. 

The  entire  production  holds  the  interest  without 
a  break,  if  only  for  its  strangeness.  It  is  played 
at  a  tremendously  rapid  pace,  which  too  often  blurs 
the  beauty  of  the  verse;  but  that  is  about  the  only 
flaw  in  its  accomplishment  of  its  purpose.  The  cos- 
tumes are  of  rare  richness  in  color,  and  every  move 
of  every  player  brings  some  fresh  pictorial  delight, 
as  these  costumes  group  and  melt  and  group  again 
against  harmoniously  colored  backgrounds.  All  the 
music  is  old  English,  and  so  are  the  dances.  Men- 
delssohn has  been  mercifully  abandoned.  The  act- 
ing, too,  is  excellent.  Actors  play  leading  parts  who 


240  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

were  almost  supers  in  "Androcles"  and  vice  versa. 
Mr.  Barker  has  a  true  stock,  or  repertory  company. 
But  best  of  all  the  performances  is  that  of  a  man 
named  Ernest  Cossart  as  Bottom.  He  does  no  mug- 
ging. He  doesn't  try  to  be  funny.  He  doesn't 
even  try  to  be  uncouth  and  ugly.  He  is  just  vain- 
glorious and  stupid  in  a  most  natural,  almost  quiet 
way — and  consequently  he  is  capital.  However, 
all  the  actors  in  the  mechanic's  drama  are  unconscious 
and  hence  delightfully  humorous.  This  usually 
dull  feature  of  "A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream" — 
dull  because  usually  so  forced  and  laborious — is  in 
the  Barker  production  one  of  the  most  fascinating 
features. 

The  production  will  arouse  controversy  (which 
is  good  for  business).  But  whether  it  jibes  with 
our  preconceived  notions  or  not,  there  is  no  denying 
its  unity  of  effect,  its  rare  pictorial  beauty  and  its 
power  to  hold  the  attention  unflaggingly,  sending 
you  from  the  theater  with  lovely  pictures  in  your 
memory  and  a  sense  of  strangeness,  as  of  a  dream. 
After  all,  what  more  can  you 


"THE  TEMPEST"  WITHOUT  SCENERY 

"The  Tempest" — Century  Theater,  April  24,  1916 

The  Tercentenary  celebration  of  Shakespeare's 
death  was  observed  in  New  York  by  productions  of 
the  poet's  plays  in  no  less  than  three  manners — not 
including,  of  course,  the  amateur  variations!  Sir 
Herbert  Tree,  at  the  New  Amsterdam,  produced 
"King  Henry  VIII"  after  the  late  Victorian  fashion, 
with  operatic  pageants  and  conventionally  excellent 
scenery.  At  the  Criterion  Theatre;  under  the  man- 
agement of  James  K.  Hackett,  Richard  .Ordynski 
(pupil  of  Reinhardt)  produced  "The  Merry  Wives 
of  Windsor"  in  the  manner  of  modern  Germany. 
The  scenery,  heavy  and  markedly  composed  into 
pattern  of  design  and  color,  was  painted  by  Joseph 
Urban;  and  an  incessant  bustle,  a  driving  pace,  a 
fluid  and  highly  mannered  series  of  forming  and 
melting  and  reforming  tableaux,  distinguished  this 
production,  giving  that  sense  of  "style,"  in  the  Con- 
tinental use  of  the  term.  Finally,  at  the  Century 

Theatre  (formerly  the  New  Theatre),  John  Corbin 

241 


242  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

and  the  actor,  Louis  Calvert,  under  the  patronage  of 
the  Drama  Society,  put  on  "The  Tempest"  in  some- 
thing approximating  Elizabethan  fashion.  The 
full  text  is  spoken,  there  are  but  two  intermissions, 
and  the  only  scenery  employed,  excepting  a  few 
property  trees  and  the  like,  is  disclosed  in  the  little 
alcove  under  the  Elizabethan  balcony  at  the  rear, 
which  serves  first  as  the  ship's  cabin  and  later  as 
Prospero's  cave. 

There  could  hardly  be  a  better  test  of  Shake- 
speare's dramatic  power.  He  survives  all  three 
methods  of  treatment,  and  each  brings  out  some- 
thing from  his  work  which  the  other  two  miss. 
Tree's  production  catches  the  pageantry.  Ordyn- 
ski's  production  records  the  speed  and  pictorial  pat- 
tern. But  the  production  on  the  bare  stage  we  our- 
self  like  best  of  all,  for  it  spurns  all  other  aids  and 
stimuli,  and  compels  the  imagination  by  the  sheer 
power  of  the  actor's  art  and  the  poet's  verbal  magic. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  what  Shake- 
speare would  do  if  he  were  writing  today.  "Of 
course,  he  would  employ  scenery,"  people  declare. 
Therefor,  is  the  implication,  let  us  employ  it  for 
him.  Undoubtedly  he  would  employ  scenery;  but 
he  would  also  employ  quite  a  different  technique  in 
the  conduct  of  his  story,  and  he  would  write  in  prose. 


"THE  TEMPEST"  243 

Should  we,  therefor,  cut  his  plays  to  pieces,  and 
reduce  his  blank  verse  to  common  conversation  — 
which  is  what  most  of  our  managers  and  actors  be- 
tween them  actually  do?  After  all,  the  plays  were 
written  for  a  stage  practically  bare,  and  on  such  a 
stage  they  are  most  effectively  performed,  just  as 
"Don  Giovanni"  is  most  effectively  performed  in  a 
theatre,  not  an  opera  house,  with  a  small  orchestra 
and  a  harpsichord.  Also,  they  are  thus  most  eco- 
nomically performed,  and  have  the  maximum  of 
educational  value.  Mr.  Corbin  has  done  a  fine 
work  in  returning  "The  Tempest"  to  the  stage  in 
its  integrity,  for  the  first  time,  he  maintains,  in  three 
hundred  years.  After  the  Restoration,  we  know, 
it  was  dressed  up  into  a  kind  of  opera,  and  in  these 
latter  years,  save  for  a  revival  at  the  hands  of 
Augustin  Daly  in  1897,  it  has  slept  the  dusty  sleep 
of  the  admired  classics. 

In  the  present  revival,  several  able  actors  are  con- 
cerned. Mr.  Calvert  plays  Prospero  with  some- 
thing too  little  of  royal  dignity",  but  with  an  evident 
love  for  the  poet's  metres.  Walter  Hampden  is  the 
Caliban,  and  a  gruesome,  grovelling  beast  he  is. 
Cecil  Yapp  is  the  Trinculo,  and  George  Hassell 
the  Stephano.  These  two  men  are  artists,  Hassell 
especially  being  almost  unrivalled  on  our  stage  as 


244  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

an  unctious  low  comedian  who,  at  the  same  time, 
holds  himself  in  fine  restraint  and  can  touch  other 
stops  on  occasion  with  ease  and  deftness.  It  is  un- 
likely that  the  comic  scenes  between  Caliban,  Trin- 
culo  and  Stephano  have  ever  been  much  better 
played  than  in  the  present  production.  The  ro- 
mance of  Ferdinand  and  Miranda  fades  a  little,  at 
the  hands  of  a  tame  actress,  before  this  rich,  ripe 
fooling,  just  as  the  fairy  spell  of  Ariel  evaporates 
when  Fania  Marinoff,  the  Ariel,  speaks  or  sings. 
Ariel  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  most  difficult  parts  in 
Shakespeare,  because  of  the  diversity  of  its  require- 
ments. The  player  must  be  light  of  foot  as  a 
thistle-down,  with  the  tongue  of  an  angel,  the  voice 
of  a  bird,  the  elfin  charm  of  a  Maude  Adams. 

The  goddesses  and  nymphs  in  the  masque  Mr. 
Corbin  caused  to  disappear  behind  a  curtain  of  hiss- 
ing steam,  finding  his  warrant  for  so  doing  in  Shake- 
speare's own  stage  directions  and  in  his  investiga- 
tions of  the  Elizabethan  theatre.  There  is  no 
cause  to  quarrel  with  him.  If  a  woman  plays 
Miranda,  we  are  already  not  strictly  Elizabethan. 
A  little  modern  steam  may  be  readily  forgiven,  sup- 
posing it  could  be  proved  that  Shakespeare  didn't 
employ  steam  himself.  What  is  here  sought  is  the 
preservation  of  the  text  in  its  integrity,  and  the  ap- 


"THE  TEMPEST"  245 

peal  to  the  imagination  through  the  medium  of  the 
poet's  verse  and  story.  There  is  no  use  denying 
that  in  the  masque,  where  an  appeal  to  the  eye  is 
frankly  made,  we  miss  the  richness  of  the  modern 
stage.  But  for  the  rest  of  the  play  we  miss  it  not 
at  all.  Shakespeare  has  his  way  with  us,  making  of 
bare  boards  his  magic  island,  of  two  box  trees  in  a 
pot  his  tangled  forest,  of  actors  speaking  immortal 
verse  his  summons  into  fairy-land.  One  at  least 
of  Shakespeare's  plays  ought  to  be  produced  each 
year  in  this  simple  manner,  with  the  best  actors  pro- 
curable. It  is  a  splendid  stimulus  to  our  pampered 
imaginations. 


SECTION  IV 
PLAYS,  PLAYERS,  AND  ACTING 


OUR  COMEDY  OF  BAD  MANNERS 


There  is  a  class  of  drama  known  to  those  who 
love  to  put  tags  upon  everything  as  the  comedy  of 
manners.  The  term  is  now  little  used  except  to 
describe  the  drama  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
Sheridan's  "School  for  Scandal"  being  the  crowning 
example  of  the  comedy  of  manners.  This  particu- 
lar division  of  the  drama  is  thus  defined  in  Henne- 
quin's  "Art  of  Playwriting"  : 

"In  the  comedy  of  manners  especial  attention 
is  paid  to  character  drawing,  and  each  character  is 
made  the  representative  of  a  certain  trait  or  passion. 
In  this  way  conventional  or  stock  characters  are  de- 
veloped, such  as  the  dissipated  son,  the  rich  and 
miserly  uncle,  the  cruel  father,  the  intriguing  ser- 
vant, and  so  on,  which  are  used  over  and  over  again. 
Comedies  of  manners  are  of  a  quiet  and  domestic 
character  and  deal  with  the  follies  of  society." 

The  ordinary  mind,  contemplating  this  definition, 

249 


250  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

is  a  little  perplexed  to  know  why  half  the  comedies 
it  sees  to-day  are  not  comedies  of  manners.  At  any 
rate,  stock  characters  are  developed  which  are  used 
over  and  over  again.  And  the  ordinary  mind,  per- 
haps, contemplating  the  American  stage,  is  inspired 
to  wonder  if,  even  within  the  strict  limits  of  this 
definition,  we  are  not  developing  a  comedy  of  bad 
manners. 

One  of  the  early  types  developed  for  stage  use  to 
symbolize  the  American  was  Asa  Trenchard,  in  the 
Englishman,  Tom  Taylor's,  play,  "Our  American 
Cousin,"  a  comedy  afterward  rechristened  "Lord 
Dundreary,"  and  acted  for  many  years  by  the  elder 
Sothern.  Asa  Trenchard  was  an  uncouth  lout,  let 
us  trust  in  reality  never  typical  at  all.  But  he 
flourished  in  drama  till  W.  J.  Florence  acted  Bard- 
well  Slote  and  John  T.  Raymond  acted  Mark 
Twain's  Mulberry  Sellers.  The  manners  of  these 
stage  characters  were  little  better,  though  they  were 
vastly  more  entertaining.  Their  more  recent  suc- 
cessors are  Joshua  Whitcomb  (kindly  and  sweet  old 
grandfather  of  a  loutish  brood  of  by-goshing  stage 
children)  and  Daniel  Voorhees  Pike  in  "The  Man 
from  Home."  With  all  his  differences,  Daniel 
Voorhees  Pike  is  the  legitimate  stage  descendant  of 
Asa  Trenchard,'  he  is  simply  the  latter-day  example 


OUR  COMEDY  OF  BAD  MANNERS      251 

of  the  type  labeled  "an  American"  in  our  comedy  of 
bad  manners. 

But  we  are  rapidly  developing  another  type 
labeled  "an  American"  which  seriously  threatens  the 
preeminence  of  the  old.  This  type  is  being  devel- 
oped by  the  younger  playwrights,  headed,  perhaps, 
by  that  peerless  leader,  George  M.  Cohan.  It  is 
most  often  urban  instead  of  rural,  but  even  more 
than  the  old,  the  new  drama  which  displays  the  type 
is  our  comedy  of  bad  manners.  These  bad  manners 
are  not  peculiar  to  our  drama;  they  permeate  our 
fiction  also.  Mr.  Cohan's  skillful  and  amusing 
play,  "Get-Rich-Quick  Wallingford,"  is  made  from 
a  story  said  to  have  been  enormously  popular  in  a 
magazine  which  affirms  a  circulation  equal  to  half 
the  population  of  the  original  thirteen  colonies. 
This  new  type  is  a  brisk,  resourceful,  humorous, 
slangy  young  person,  fresh  in  every  sense  of  the 
word,  always  of  low-  or  middle-class  origin,  without 
any  manners  but  bad  ones,  quick-witted  but  super- 
ficial, devoid  of  fine  breeding,  distinction,  charm. 
He  overruns  our  stage  just  now.  The  plays  of 
Edgar  Selwyn,  of  George  M.  Cohan,  of  James 
Forbes,  of  George  Ade,  of  Henry  W.  Blossom,  and 
of  many  others,  give  him  a  field  for  his  activities. 
Always  he  triumphs.  Always  he  is  the  hero.  Al- 


252  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

ways  he  is  the  type  "an  American,"  the  new  type 
in  our  comedy  of  bad  manners. 

There  is  something  veracious  about  him,  too. 
One  meets  him  on  the  street — on  Broadway,  at  any 
rate.  One  sees  him  at  the  races  and  ball  games. 
He  is  loafing  round  the  post  office  after  supper  in 
our  smaller  towns.  There  are  some  of  us,  to  be 
sure,  who  would  rather  see  him  educated  than  dra- 
matized. But  his  mother  wit  is  shrewd  and  amus- 
ing, "he  has  good  stuff  in  him,"  as  the  saying  goes; 
and  dramatized  he  has  been,  manners  and  all.  And 
to  play  him  a  race  of  actors  has  been  developed 
whose  "personalities"  seem  to  fit  the  demands  of 
this  character.  His  manners  are  reproduced  to  the 
life.  Grace  and  distinction  of  bearing  and  deport- 
ment have  become  almost  a  lost  art  with  many,  if 
not  most,  of  our  younger  actors.  Our  comedy  of 
bad  manners  is  no  longer  the  narrow  definition  of 
a  certain  kind  of  play;  it  is  a  description  of  much 
that  goes  on  upon  our  stage. 

All  of  us  who  care  for  the  amenities  of  life,  who 
esteem  correct  deportment  in  its  proper  place,  who 
are  charmed  by  grace  and  distinction  and  hurt  by 
its  absence  from  plays  where  it  belongs,  have  suf- 
fered only  too  often  from  the  prevalent  bad  man- 
ners of  the  American  theatre.  For  these  bad 


OUR  COMEDY  OF  BAD  MANNERS      253 

manners,  of  course,  the  type  of  drama  we  have  just 
described  is  not  alone  responsible,  though  its  pop- 
ularity has  undoubtedly  tended  to  encourage  the 
more  flippant  side  of  the  players  and  to  discourage 
the  assiduous  cultivation  of  correct  deportment,  of 
good  manners.  Our  present  stage  managers  are  a 
contributory  cause.  They  do  not — and  too  many 
of  them  cannot — instruct  the  players  in  carriage  and 
deportment,  nor  insist  upon  correct  speech  and 
graceful  bearing.  The  producing  managers,  also, 
are  to  blame,  because,  in  the  first  place,  most  of 
them  mount  more  plays  than  can  possibly  be  pro- 
duced with  proper  attention  and  rehearsal,  and  in 
the  second  place  because  they  are  themselves  too 
often  quite  blind  to  the  charm  of  good  manners  and 
the  value  of  distinction.  Finally — and  in  the  last 
analysis  chiefly — we,  the  public,  are  to  blame,  be- 
cause we  ourselves  place  too  little  emphasis  on 
charm  and  distinction  in  our  judgment  of  the  play- 
ers (as  in  our  judgment  of  our  fellow  men),  esteem- 
ing some  too  highly  who  lack  these  graces,  esteem- 
ing the  few  who  possess  them  not  enough,  and  in 
general  showing  too  little  vigorous  insistence  in  our 
drama  on  a  final  note  of  style,  of  elegance,  of  good 
breeding. 

A  popular  actress,  herself  a  woman  of  unques- 


254  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

tioned  breeding  and  distinction,  whose  plays  invar- 
iably call  for  a  touch  of  the  same  qualities  in  others 
of  the  company,  particularly  in  the  leading  man, 
recently  complained  to  the  present  writer  that  it 
was  almost  impossible  to  secure  an  American  actor 
any  longer  who  could  qualify  in  this  important  re- 
spect. She  mentioned  Bruce  McRae  and  Charles 
Cherry  as  two,  of  course,  whom  she  would  like  to 
secure,  but  both  of  whom  were  elsewhere  engaged. 
Frank  Worthing  was  also  otherwise  engaged.  She 
was  forced  to  send  to  England  for  a  leading  man. 
Both  Mr.  Cherry  and  Mr.  McRae,  it  might  be  re- 
marked, may  be  claimed  more  by  England  than 
America. 

Charles  Cherry  and  Bruce  McRae  (who  is  a 
nephew  of  that  most  polished  and  delightful  of 
gentlemen  and  actors,  Sir  Charles  Wyndham), 
neither  of  them  actors  of  any  considerable  range  or 
power,  are,  indeed,  capital  examples  of  what  too 
many  of  our  players  are  not.  They  have  the  charm 
and  grace  of  bearing  which  come  from  familiarity 
with  the  usages  of  good  society;  they  have  the  ease 
of  gentlemen  and  the  distinction  of  culture.  If 
either  of  them  were  called  upon  to  portray  a  man 
of  the  polite  world,  he  would  not  come  out  on  the 
stage,  as  one  of  our  prominent  players  actually  did 


OUR  COMEDY  OF  BAD  MANNERS      255 

a  few  seasons  ago,  wearing  a  pink  waistcoat  with 
his  evening  dress.  He  would  not,  as  so  many  of 
our  actors  do,  affect  the  latest  ultra-fads  of  the 
Broadway  tailors — one  button  to  his  sack  coat, 
turned-up  coat  cuffs,  and  all  the  rest.  He  would 
not  stand  like  a  gawk  in  the  presence  of  ladies,  his 
hands  thrusting  out  like  the  Scarecrow's  in  the  "The 
Wizard  of  Oz."  He  would  not  sit  down  before 
the  ladies  were  seated,  nor  fail  to  rise  when  they 
enter  the  room,  nor  hitch  up  his  trousers  above  his 
boot  tops,  nor  talk  with  the  Broadway  flat  "a"  and 
the  Broadway  "guerl"  for  girl  and  "puerfectly"  for 
perfectly  and  "minut"  to  denote  a  period  of  sixty 
seconds.  His  tone  would  not  be  that  of  a  rent  col- 
lector come  on  an  unpleasant  duty,  or  the  gardener 
making  love  to  the  cook.  He  would,  in  short,  bear 
himself  like  a  gentleman. 

Lester  Wallack,  himself  a  prince  of  deportment 
on  the  stage,  with  that  grace  and  poise  and  dashing 
charm  of  bearing  so  essential  for  the  true  portrayal 
of  romantic  roles,  once  rebuked  an  actor  at  rehearsal 
for  pulling  up  his  trousers  when  he  sat  down. 
"You  are  playing  a  gentleman  now,"  he  said,  "and 
you  are  supposed  to  have  more  than  one  pair  of 
trousers."  The  point  is  not  unimportant.  Noth- 
ing is  more  ridiculous  and  fatal  to  illusion  than  the 


256  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

vain  actor's  preening  of  his  person  on  the  stage,  and 
his  middle-class  care  of  his  wardrobe  in  the  presence 
of  spectators. 

In  contrast  to  such  careful  attention  to  the  amen- 
ities by  Lester  Wallack,  one  of  our  present-day 
stage  managers,  who  mounts  many  important  plays 
for  a  leading  firm  of  producers,  permitted  a  minor 
actor  in  a  drama  translated  from  the  French  to 
throw  an  entire  scene  out  of  key  by  his  total  lack 
of  manners.  This  actor,  in  the  role  of  a  jeweler, 
was  supposed  to  call  upon  a  fine  lady,  to  see  about 
the  purchase  of  her  jewels.  It  was  a  part  of  his 
trade  to  purchase  jewels  from  fine  ladies  and  to  be 
man  of  the  world  enough  never  to  disclose  by  a  hint 
that  he  suspected  the  real  cause  for  the  sale.  He 
was  supposed  to  enter  almost  as  a  servant,  bland, 
obsequious,  polite,  deferential.  But  the  stage  man- 
ager permitted  the  American  actor  who  essayed  the 
part  to  enter  like  a  bailiff  come  to  make  an  eviction. 
The  actress,  fighting  to  create  an  air  of  distinction, 
of  breeding,  for  her  part,  to  create  the  atmosphere 
of  an  old,  aristocratic  household,  was,  of  course, 
hopelessly  baffled  by  this  performance.  The  at- 
mosphere evaporated.  The  last  whiff  of  it  went 
up  the  chimney  when  the  actor  deliberately  sat  down 
in  her  presence,  she  standing  up.  Bad  manners 


OUR  COMEDY  OF  BAD  MANNERS      257 

could  go  no  further  in  the  destruction  of  illusion. 
And  this  bit  of  boorish  ignorance  was  sanctioned  by 
a  stage  manager  to  whom  are  entrusted  some  of  our 
leading  productions.  The  actor,  if  he  did  not  know 
any  better,  should,  of  course,  have  been  told.  It 
would  have  been  comparatively  simple  at  least  to 
make  him  remain  standing  in  the  lady's  presence. 
Unfortunately,  there  was  nobody  with  good  enough 
manners  to  tell  him. 

In  Henry  Austin  Clapp's  "Reminiscences  of  a 
Dramatic  Critic"  is  the  following  sentence: 

"I  remember  hearing  it  said,  at  a  time  near  the 
close  of  the  Great  War,  by  some  men  who  were 
native  here,  and  to  the  best  Boston  manner  born, 
that  Edward  Everett,  A.B.,  A.M.,  LL.D.,  ex-Gov- 
ernor of  Massachusetts,  ex-United  States  Senator 
from  Massachusetts,  ex-President  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege, ex-Minister  to  England,  litterateur,  orator, 
statesman,  was,  in  respect  of  distinction  of  manners, 
in  a  class  with  but  one  other  of  his  fellow  citizens : 
that  other  one  appeared  in  the  local  directory  as 
'Warren,  William,  comedian,  boards  2  Bulfinch 
Place/  " 

William  Warren,  comedian,  was  one  of  America's 
greatest  actors.  He  was  equally  at  home  in  high 
comedy  and  low,  equally  convincing  as  the  fine 


258  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

gentleman  or  the  country  lout,  as  Sir  Peter  Teazle 
or  Dogberry.  He  could  slough  off  his  manners 
when  the  part  demanded.  That  is  not  so  difficult. 
But  it  is  not  so  easy  to  put  fine  manners  on,  when 
you  do  not  possess  them.  With  Warren  they  were 
as  much  an  instinct  as  personal  cleanliness.  He  did 
not  acquire  them  with  any  thought  of  their  being  a 
stock  in  trade.  But  a  stock  in  trade  they  inevitably 
were.  They  raised  him  to  a  foremost  position  on 
the  American  stage,  because  they  endowed  his  high 
comedy  impersonations  with  a  convincing  style  and 
an  irresistible  charm,  they  gave  him  the  final  note 
of  personal  distinction. 

How  many  of  our  players  to-day  can  you  recall 
offhand  who  can  play  in  high  comedy  with  con- 
vincing style  and  the  charm  of  fine  bearing?  You 
think,  of  course,  of  Miss  Maxine  Elliott,  of  Miss 
Grace  George,  of  Miss  Marlowe,  of  Mrs.  Fiske, 
of  Miss  Barrymore  and  Miss  Anglin — all  of  them 
practised  players,  several  of  them  trained  in  "the 
old  school."  You  think  of  certain  other  practised 
players,  such  as  Miss  Crosman  and  Miss  Irving. 
Of  the  less  practised  women  you  think,  it  may  be, 
of  Miss  Janet  Beecher  and  of  her  sister,  Miss  Olive 
Wyndham,  at  the  New  Theatre,  who  speaks  so 
beautifully  and  carries  herself  so  well  that  you  are 


OUR  COMEDY  OF  BAD  MANNERS      259 

inclined  to  forgive  her  slim  technical  equipment  for 
the  suggestion  of  emotions.  Perhaps  you  think, 
too,  of  Miss  Crystal  Herne  and  two  or  three  more: 
and  then  your  memory  begins  to  waver.  You  begin 
to  recall  play  after  play  where  fine  ladies  were  de- 
picted with  every  shade  of  nasal  speech,  affected 
pose  (our  actresses'  idea  of  gentility  being  a  com- 
plete absence  of  naturalness),  gawky  gesture  and 
uncouth  manners.  You  begin  to  recall  the  pain  of 
drawing-rooms  peopled  with  folk  totally  lacking  in 
distinction,  of  romantic  scenes  without  charm,  with- 
out grace,  without  glamor. 

Again,  you  turn  to  the  men.  The  case  is  even 
worse,  for  manners  come  more  naturally  to  the 
ladies.  You  think,  of  course,  of  Mr.  McRae  and 
Mr.  Cherry,  of  Mr.  A.  E.  Matthews,  the  young 
English  actor  now  appearing  in  "The  Importance 
of  Being  Earnest,"  of  Frank  Worthing,  of  Frank 
Gillmore,  now  at  the  New  Theatre,  who  has  played 
Romeo  alluringly  and  the  Prince  in  "Such  a  Little 
Queen"  with  a  genuine  suggestion  of  royal  birth 
and  breeding,  of  Walter  Hampden,  of  Richard  Ben- 
nett perhaps,  who  is  a  character  actor  also,  of  George 
Nash,  who  played  so  beautifully  in  "The  Harvest 
Moon,"  and  of  Mr.  Sothern,  Mr.  Skinner,  Mr.  Mil- 
ler. But  Mr.  Nash,  Mr.  Sothern,  Mr.  Skinner 


260  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

and  Mr.  Miller  belong  by  rights  to  an  elder  school 
of  training.  Of  course,  you  can  name  some  others 
for  yourself — and  then  again  your  memory  begins 
to  waver.  The  picture  comes  of  white-gloved 
hands  thrusting  hugely  forth  from  black  sleeves, 
embarrassed  about  what  to  do  with  themselves,  of 
flip,  unmannerly  speech,  of  nasal  inflections,  mis- 
pronunciations, lack  of  social  distinction,  of  ease 
and  grace  and  style.  You  think  of  a  long  proces- 
sion of  comedies  of  bad  manners. 

It  is  characteristic  of  a  certain  type  of  jingo 
"Americanism"  to  consider  good  manners  as  a  sign 
of  social  snobbishness  and  to  regard  personal  grace 
and  distinction  as  a  cover  for  mental  and  moral 
sloth,  even  a  cover  for  the  idle  rich  who  ride  down 
Fifth  Avenue  with  lap  dogs.  This  attitude  is  both 
a  misapprehension  of  what  constitutes  good  man- 
ners and  personal  distinction,  and  a  gross  flattery  of 
those  who  ride  down  Fifth  Avenue  with  lap  dogs. 
Good  manners  are  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
inward  and  abiding  regard  for  the  finer  feelings  of 
others.  Personal  distinction  is  the  result,  and  can 
only  be  the  result,  of  personal  familiarity  with  fine 
thoughts,  fine  people,  and  a  beautiful  way  of  living. 
Because,  through  ignorance  and  unfamiliarity  with  a 
more  finished  society,  many  sturdy  American  virtues 


OUR  COMEDY  OF  BAD  MANNERS      261 

are  found  in  men  and  women  of  uncouth  manners, 
it  is  by  no  means  logical  to  infer  that  those  virtues 
result  from  the  uncouthness,  or  that  the  lack  of  un- 
couthness  implies  in  all  others  a  lack  of  the  virtues. 
Yet  that  illogical  inference  is  exactly  what  too 
many  of  us  are  prone  to  make,  until,  finally,  un- 
couthness, bad  manners,  a  lack  of  personal  distinc- 
tion, have  come  somehow  to  stand  as  a  symbol  of 
our  national  virtues,  and  the  G.  M.  Cohan  type  of 
"fresh"  young  man  is  the  hero  of  our  new  romance. 
You  cannot  separate  the  national  stage  from  the 
national  life.  As  we  sow  in  taste,  we  reap  in 
drama,  so  long  as  the  stage  is  left  entirely  to  the 
guidance  of  a  strictly  commercial  management. 
The  inability  of  our  players  adequately  to  perform 
plays  which  call  for  the  finer  graces  of  speech  and 
manner,  whether  native  dramas,  dramas  of  the 
European  aristocracy,  or  comedies  and  romances  of 
an  elder  day,  results,  of  course,  from  lack  of  proper 
training  and  direction;  and  that  lack,  in  turn,  results 
from  the  lack  of  any  imperative  demand.  For  the 
brisk,  veracious,  slangy,  nasal  performance  of  a 
Cohan  farce,  running  two  hundred  nights  on  Broad- 
way to  packed  houses,  and  consequently  exalting 
that  species  of  drama  and  performance  as  something 
to  be  emulated  by  writers  and  actors  and  producers, 


262  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

we  pay  by  the  murderous  performance  of  Bataille's 
"The  Scandal,"  or -of  "Decorating  Clementine,"  or 
of  a  score  of  other  dramas,  native  or  adapted,  real- 
istic or  poetic,  grave  or  gay,  which  imperatively  de» 
mand  for  illusion  style  and  distinction  of  the  players. 

Now,  style  and  distinction,  personal  grace  and 
charm  of  manners,  are  the  very  technique  of  fine 
living  as  well  as  its  flower.  So  far  as  they  are 
unesteemed  and  uncultivated  in  American  life,  so 
far  is  that  life  crude,  deficient.  So  far  as  they  are 
absent  from  the  representation  of  life  upon  the 
stage,  just  so  far  is  the  stage  crude,  deficient.  From 
the  realistic  depiction  of  frontier  society,  of  sordid- 
ness,  of  middle-class  existence  as  it  is  frequently 
spent,  they  are  properly  absent.  But  this  is  not  the 
whole  of  life,  even  in  America.  Nor  is  the  realistic 
depiction  of  surrounding  conditions  the  whole  mis- 
sion of  drama.  The  highest,  as  well  as  the  lowest, 
deserves  a  place  upon  the  stage :  and  upon  the  stage, 
too,  belong  the  charm  of  romance,  the  glitter  of  high 
comedy,  the  sensuous  appeal  of  poetry,  of  verbal 
beauty,  of  sheer  esthetic  charm. 

For  these  things  style  and  distinction  are  required. 
The  sparkle  of  high  comedy  can  be  scattered  only  by 
lips  trained  to  speak  properly,  by  players  trained  to 
ease  and  grace  of  pose;  the  glamour  of  romance  can 


OUR  COMEDY  OF  BAD  MANNERS      263 

be  cast  only  by  players  of  high  bearing,  personal 
charm  and  chivalric  manners;  verbal  beauty  may 
only  exert  its  spell  when  a  love  of  verbal  beauty 
sits  at  the  speaker's  heart;  and,  in  the  most  realistic 
depiction  of  actual  life,  there  can  be  no  truth  to  our 
finer-bred  and  more  intellectual  society  unless  we 
have  actors  of  sufficient  culture  and  worldly  wisdom 
to  comport  with  their  parts. 

Not  only  must  our  stage  for  its  full  and  rounded 
development  show  us  the  comedy  of  good  manners 
as  well  as  of  bad  manners,  but  by  so  doing  it  can 
exert  a  considerable  influence  upon  our  society. 
Especially  over  the  minds  of  the  young,  the  stage 
has  a  tremendous  influence;  in  certain  quarters  of 
our  larger  cities  it  is  the  supreme  influence.  Could 
the  stage  display  more  personal  distinction,  could 
it  put  forth  the  charm  of  good  manners,  of  style  and 
elegance,  could  it  show  the  grace  of  correctly  spoken 
English,  it  would  not,  perhaps,  so  entirely  hold  the 
mirror  up  to  American  nature  (as  that  nature  is  ex- 
pressed in  American  manners),  but  it  would  make 
American  nature  more  worthy  to  be  mirrored. 

How  may  this  result  be  brought  about? 

It  may  be  most  practic'ally  and  effectively 
brought  about  by  the  direct  influence  of  more  culti- 
vated men  in  the  managerial  department  of  the 


264  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

playhouse.  Fancy  the  influence,  not  of  one  New 
Theatre,  but  of  a  score  of  playhouses  where  a  score 
of  managers  set  themselves  each  a  standard,  picking 
and  drilling  their  players  to  comport  with  it. 

The  question  reduces  itself  once  again  to  the 
statement  we  have  more  than  once  iterated:  That 
the  man  who  essays  to  become  a  theatrical  manager 
takes  upon  himself  the  responsibilities  of  a  public 
servant,  for  what  he  produces  will  inevitably  influ- 
ence the  public  taste  for  good  or  evil;  that  no  man 
can  produce  above  his  own  level;  that  his  works 
will  have  style  and  distinction  only  in  so  far  as  he 
possesses  those  qualities;  and,  therefore,  that  a  stage 
which  shall  exert  a  steady  influence  for  better  taste 
and  better  manners  must  be  managed  by  better  men, 
men  who  are  not  of  the  "common  average,"  but 
above  it.  The  advent  of  more  such  men  into  the 
theatrical  "business"  is  earnestly  to  be  desired. 
We  need  them  quite  as  much  as  we  need  play- 
wrights. May  we  not  look  to  the  newly  awakened 
interest  in  the  practical  theatre  among  our  colleges 
to  produce  managers  as  well  as  authors?  Why  the 
management  of  a  fine  art  should  be  given  over  so 
exclusively  as  it  is  to  something  generally  less  than 
the  "common  average"  remains  a  reproach — and  a 
mystery. 


THE  REAL  FOES  OF  THE  SERIOUS 
DRAMA 

1911 

As  a  new  season  opens  in  the  playhouse,  we 
might  do  well  to  pause  and  consider  our  attitude 
toward  the  play,  for  it  is  our  attitude  toward  the 
play,  quite  as  much  as  it  is  the  players  or  the  play- 
wright, which  ultimately  determines  what  kind  of 
a  drama  we  shall  have. 

The  real  foes  of  a  serious,  effective  and  socially 
important  national  drama  in  America  are  not  the 
managers,  who  are  glad  enough  to  produce  any  kind 
of  a  play  demanded — if  somebody  will  pick  it  out 
for  them !  The  real  foes  are  not  the  frivolous  thou- 
sands who  prefer  musical  comedy  or  vaudeville — 
"tired  business  men,"  drummers,  ladies  on  shopping 
expeditions,  and  their  like.  Such  frivolous  folk  we 
have  always  with  us,  always  have  had,  and  always 
will  have.  Indeed,  the  best  of  us  are  frivolous  now 
and  then,  and  the  man  who  says  he  doesn't  like  a 
good  musical  comedy  we  regard  in  very  much  the 

265 


266  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

same  way  as  the  man  who  says  he  doesn't  like  onions 
— as  a  liar.  No,  the  real  foes  of  a  serious,  effective 
drama  in  America,  which  shall  rank  as  literature  on 
the  one  hand  and  as  a  social  force  on  the  other,  are 
the  thousands  of  good  men  and  women — more 
women  than  men,  unfortunately — whose  attitude 
toward  the  stage  is  represented  by  their  reiterated 
•remark  in  the  face  of  a  serious  drama,  "There's 
enough  unhappiness  in  the  world  without  showing 
it  on  the  stage." 

The  attitude  of  these  people  toward  the  stage  is 
only  too  apt  to  be  their  attitude  toward  all  art;  but 
it  is  only  the  theatre  which  concerns  us  here.  Who 
are  these  people?  They  are  not  the  frivolous,  the 
unintelligent.  They  are  more  often  than  not  most 
serious-minded,  and  even  pursuers  of  culture  at 
Chautauquan  conventions,  middle-aged  and  elderly 
women,  passionate  workers  in  the  church,  seekers 
after  the  salvation  of  the  heathen  and  their  pastor's 
health,  rigorous  adherents  to  the  strictest  standards 
of  morality — of  such  are  the  foes  of  a  serious  drama. 
Men  of  solid  standing  in  the  community,  of  mature 
judgment,  of  high  civic  ideals — of  such  are  the  foes 
of  a  serious  drama.  Younger  women,  neither 
frivolous  nor  unintelligent,  but  just  ordinary  girls 
grown  up  into  the  responsibilities  of  motherhood 


REAL  FOES  OF  SERIOUS  DRAMA      267 

with  comfortable  homes  and  a  wholesome  desire  for 
the  occasional  pleasures  of  the  theatre — of  such  are 
the  foes  of  a  serious  drama.  They  are  its  foes  be- 
cause they  are  the  very  people  who  should  support 
it.  Instead  they,  whose  attitude  toward  life  is  one 
of  sane  recognition  of  its  gravity,  assume  toward  the 
stage  an  attitude  of  evasion,  and  demand  of  art  not 
honesty  and  seriousness,  but  a  pretty  story  which 
shall  ignore  the  facts  of  life  and  take  account  only 
of  the  fictions  of  romance;  which  shall,  at  any  rate, 
if  it  takes  account  of  the  facts  of  life,  select  only 
the  pleasant  facts. 

A  preacher  in  a  certain  Pennsylvania  city  once 
preached  a  sermon  describing  the  squalors  and  pri- 
vations among  the  mill  and  factory  laborers  and 
their  families  at  the  other  end  of  the  town.  After 
the  service  a  good  lady  of  his  congregation  came  up 
to  him  reproachfully.  "Why  do  you  preach  such 
sermons?"  she  asked.  "You  have  harrowed  me  all 
up!  I  come  to  church  to  be  spiritually  uplifted  and 
soothed." 

That,  we  fear,  is  the  attitude  of  a  great  many 
good  ladies,  and  not  a  few  good  men,  toward  the 
drama. 

We  have  said  that  such  people  are  the  real  foes 
of  a  serious  national  drama,  a  drama  that  shall  be 


268  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

literature  and  shall  be  of  social  value,  because  they 
are  most  often  the  people  who,  in  the  community 
at  large,  represent  the  solid  element  of  average  in- 
telligence and  civic  service.  They  are  the  ones  who 
support  the  church,  the  village  improvement  society, 
the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  the  boys'  club;  who  keep  their 
lawns  and  their  children  in  order;  who  are,  whether 
rich  or  poor,  the  people  at  whom  our  patriotic 
orators  proudly  point.  They  are  honest  in  their 
lives;  they  are  dishonest  in  their  art.  They  declare 
that  they  "want  to  get  away  from  unpleasant  things 
in  the  theatre" — and  they  do  not  mean  that  they 
want  vaudeville  or  musical  farce,  because  they  are 
not  the  supporters  of  stage  frivolity.  They  mean 
that  they  want  drama  which  is  pleasantly  romantic, 
which  has  no  relation  to  the  stern  facts  of  contem- 
porary society.  They  want,  like  the  good  lady  in 
church,  to  be  soothed.  Thus  the  very  class  of  the 
population  which,  in  the  practical  matters  of  life, 
may  be  relied  upon  for  support,  in  the  matter  of 
art  cannot  be  relied  upon  at  all.  These  people  do 
not  regard  art  as  a  practical  matter  of  life,  but  as 
something  quite  apart  from  life,  and  of  consequent 
unimportance.  That  is  their  error.  Once  con- 
vince them  that  art,  especially  the  drama,  is  of  quite 
as  much  living  and  practical  importance  as  Chinese 


REAL  FOES  OF  SERIOUS  DRAMA      269 

missions  or  the  minister's  salary  or  the  trimming  of 
the  sidewalks,  and  we  fancy  an  astonishing  change 
would  come  over  our  stage;  there  would  be  a  wid- 
ening and  deepening  of  the  scope  and  appeal  of  our 
serious  drama,  due  to  the  new  encouragement  and 
support. 

But  how  convince  them*?  The  task  sometimes 
seems  hopeless,  because  there  is  something  per- 
versely illogical  in  their  attitude.  We  have  said 
they  regard  art  as  unimportant.  That  is  not  en- 
tirely true.  They  are  willing  to  admit  it  possesses 
a  practical  power  for  harm,  but  they  cannot  see  how 
it  can,  conversely,  possess  a  practical  power  for 
good  by  treating  seriously  the  serious  facts  of  life. 
"The  Easiest  Way,"  for  example,  or  "Mrs.  War- 
ren's Profession" — to  name  two  exceptionally  un- 
pleasant plays  which  the  sentiment  of  these  people 
succeeded  in  forbidding,  one  in  Boston,  one  in 
New  York — are  not  to  be  tolerated  because  "no 
good  can  come  of  showing  such  things  on  the 
stage;  there's  enough  of  such  unhappiness  in  the 
world,"  and  our  young  people  "will  learn  from 
such  plays  a  great  many  things  they  shouldn't 
know." 

Just  how  far  this  attitude  is  inspired  by  a  real 
regard  for  our  young  people,  or  how  far  it  is  in- 


270  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

spired  by  an  aversion  to  face  the  unhappy  facts  of 
life  when  presented  in  so  concrete  and  vivid  terms, 
is  a  question  we  need  not  go  into  here.  The  truth 
remains  that  it  is  not  the  part  of  wisdom  to  adapt 
all  our  drama  to  the  young-person,  but  to  pick  what 
plays  our  young  shall  go  to  see.  Thus  we  dispose 
of  the  young-person  argument. 

When  we  come  to  the  argument  that  "there's 
enough  unhappiness  in  the  world,  and  no  good  can 
come  of  depicting  it  on  the  stage,"  we  can  only 
answer  that  so  long  as  there  is  so  much  unhappiness 
in  the  world,  it  is  our  duty  to  keep  people  reminded 
of  it,  by  every  means  in  our  power,  until  they  are 
driven  to  remedy  matters.  It  is  a  psychological 
banality  that  man  is  roused  to  action  much  less 
readily  by  indirect  than  direct  stimulus.  We  read 
without  a  shudder  of  100,000  Hindoos  dying  of 
famine  in  India.  But  if  a  family  we  know,  in  our 
town,  should  starve,  we  would  cringe  with  the  hor- 
ror of  it.  We  have  read,  most  of  us,  of  insufficient 
wages  paid  to  working  girls,  and  the  dreadful  moral 
result;  but  how  many  of  us  have  been  roused  to  see 
what  remedial  steps  we,  personally,  can  take"? 
How  real  an  impression  has  it  made  upon  us"?  De- 
pict such  conditions  truthfully  on  the  stage,  in  the 
vivid  terms  of  the  theatre,  let  your  audience  become 


REAL  FOES  OF  SERIOUS  DRAMA      271 

absorbed  in  your  story,  caught  up  into  the  lives  of 
your  characters,  and  you  have  done  the  next  best 
thing,  for  purposes  of  rousing  response,  to  striking 
your  audience  directly  through  the  tragedy  of  some 
one  near  or  dear  to  them.  Most  Englishmen  have 
never  been  in  prison,  and  they  remained  indifferent 
to  the  abuses  of  the  English  prison  system  till 
Mr.  Galsworthy's  play,  "Justice,"  was  produced. 
There  is  unhappiness  enough  in  the  world,  enough 
and  to  spare,  but  Mr.  Galsworthy  proposed  that 
there  should  be  a  little  less,  so  he  roused  the  nation 
by  a  drama.  That  is  the  good  which  can  come  of 
"putting  such  things  on  the  stage." 

So  much  for  the  social  side  of  the  serious  drama. 
No  less  important  is  the  more  strictly  literary  side. 
No  artist  who  is  worthy  of  the  name  writes  or  paints 
or  carves  or  composes  in  a  constant  spirit  of  levity, 
or  with  a  disregard  of  the  relations  between  his  work 
and  the  facts  of  nature.  Art,  for  the  genuine  artist, 
is  not  play;  it  is  serious  business,  the  business  of 
recording  in  coherent  and  significant  form  his  ob- 
servations of  the  world  about  him  and  his  sense  of 
their  drift  and  significance.  No  enduring  art  has 
ever  been  created,  nor  ever  will  be  created,  which 
is  not  the  artist's  conscious  comment  on  life;  and 
the  highest  pleasure  which  we  derive  from  a  work 


272  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

of  art  is  the  pleasure  of  realizing  its  truth,  expand- 
ing our  own  experience  of  life  by  living  thus  vicar- 
iously in  an  art  work,  and  gaining  through  the 
artist's  eyes  a  new  sense  of  beauty  or  of  power. 
Such  art  is  only  created  by  large-minded  and  serious 
men.  Such  men  can  only  create  it  when  they  are 
unhampered  in  their  choice  of  subject,  when  they 
are  permitted  to  follow  their  natural  bent,  write  of 
what  interests  them,  paint  what  seems  to  them  worth 
painting.  And  just  so  long  as  the  public  puts  a 
check  on  the  freedom  of  the  playwright's  choice  by 
refusing  to  enjoy  or  to  patronize  plays  which  are 
not  sweet,  romantic  fictions,  just  so  long  will  a  true 
literary  drama  remain  in  abeyance,  true  artists  of 
intellectual  power  and  serious  interest  in  the  prob- 
lems of  life  turn  to  other  fields  of  endeavor  than 
the  stage. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  older  generation 
especially,  which  mourns  a  decline  of  Shakespeare 
from  the  stage  (though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Shake- 
speare is  still  played  more  often  than  any  other 
dramatist),  which  sighs  for  the  good  old  days  of 
Booth  and  Forrest,  for  the  days  when  the  drama 
was  "sweet"  and  "wholesome,"  forget,  or  cannot 
comprehend,  that  the  old  order  changeth,  and  that 
our  "unpleasant"  realistic  plays  of  to-day  are  the 


REAL  FOES  OF  SERIOUS  DRAMA      273 

modern  counterpart  of  the  elder  tragedies  in  which 
Booth  and  Forrest  thundered. 

No  good  can  possibly  come  of  reviving  "Vir- 
ginius"  to-day,  because  the  theatregoers  of  to-day 
don't  want  "Virginius" — it  bores  them.  Since  our 
modern  drama  is  intimate  and  realistic,  our  modern 
tragedies  must  be  intimate  and  realistic,  and  their 
subject  matter  must  be  what  is  tragic  in  modern  life. 
If  the  good  souls  who  once  accepted  "Virginius"  but 
now  reject  "The  Easiest  Way"  or  "Mid-Channel" 
would  only  pause  to  consider  the  question  fairly, 
they  would  see  that  the  only  reason  why  "Vir- 
ginius" isn't  as  unhappy  and  unpleasant  as  the 
modern  plays  is  because  it  is  a  story  of  ancient  Rome 
instead  of  modern  New  York  or  London — it  is  2,000 
years  in  the  past.  We  fancy  that  the  lust  of  Appius 
Claudius  is  no  more  "pleasant"  a  thing  to  contem- 
plate, per  se,  than  that  of  the  broker  in  "The  Easiest 
Way*'  or  of  the  husband  in  Brieux's  play,  "The 
Three  Daughters  of  Monsieur  Dupont."  We 
fancy  that  certain  physical  facts  are  quite  as  frankly 
suggested  by  "Virginius"  (or  "The  Winter's  Tale," 
for  that  matter,  or  "Othello")  as  by  the  modern 
plays  of  Pinero  and  Shaw.  But  the  difference  is 
that  girls  to-day  are  not  in  danger  of  seduction  by 
Appius  Claudius ;  a  great  many  of  them  are  exposed 


274  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

to  the  perils  of  the  Tenderloin  of  New  York,  to  the 
perils  of  marriage,  of  sweatshops  and  department 
stores,  of  idleness  and  vanity.  If  we  may  have  the 
stage  depiction  of  ancient  perils  passed,  by  what 
logic  can  any  theatre-goer  deny  us  the  depiction  of 
present  perils'?  There  is  no  logic  in  it.  The  fact 
is  that  the  depiction  of  ancient  perils  did  not  trouble 
us  because  they  were  far  away ;  the  modern  tragedies 
"harrow  us  up,"  like  the  preacher's  sermon,  because 
they  are  near  to  us,  and  so  we  do  not  like  them. 
We  are  cowards  in  art.  After  all,  none  but  the 
brave  deserve  a  literature. 

An  inevitable  accompaniment  of  the  opposition 
to  serious  modern  social  drama  is  the  argument  that 
by  tolerating  such  plays  you  will  "banish  beauty 
from  the  stage,"  murk  it  o'er  with  gloom  and  de- 
pression. You  will  do,  of  course,  nothing  of  the 
kind.  In  the  first  place,  the  men  of  the  largest 
purpose,  the  finest  human  sympathy — that  is,  the 
men  best  fitted  to  write  such  drama — are  very  fre- 
quently the  men  also  best  fitted  for  comedy,  by 
their  very  qualities  of  sympathy.  Pinero  of  "The 
Thunderbolt"  is  also  the  Pinero  of  "Trelawny  of 
the  Wells"  and  "Sweet  Lavendar."  Barrie  of 
"The  Twelve-Pound  Look"  is  the  Barrie  of  "Peter 
Pan."  It  further  follows  that  the  qualities  required 


REAL  FOES  OF  SERIOUS  DRAMA      275 

of  an  audience  to  appreciate  serious  social  drama  are 
the  very  qualities  which  are  required  for  the  ap- 
preciation of  satire.  Still  further,  the  depth  and 
richness  of  the  humor  in  any  literature. is  most  fre- 
quently measured  by  the  depth  and  richness  of  its 
serious  plays  or  novels,  even  when  the  two  are  not 
united  in  one  man,  as  in  a  Thackeray  or  Shakespeare. 

The  world  is  not  all  bad;  men  love  to  laugh;  other 
men  love  to  make  them  laugh;  we  still  have  ro- 
mance, happiness,  poetry,  and  we  shall  continue  to 
have  them.  A  problem  play  does  not  make  the 
world  any  worse;  it  strives,  indeed,  to  make  the 
world  a  little  better.  Neither  J.  M.  Barrie  nor 
G.  M.  Cohan  is  going  to  stop  writing  comedies  be- 
cause Pinero  and  Eugene  Walter  wrote  "Mid- 
Channel"  and  "The  Easiest  Way."  When  we 
plead  for  the  encouragement  by  American  audiences 
of  earnest,  outspoken,  native  sociological  dramas, 
we  are  only  pleading  for  the  widening  and  deepen- 
ing of  our  dramatic  literature,  the  enrichment  and 
vitalizing  of  its  appeal.  A  stage  must  be  universal 
in  its  range,  it  must  embrace  the  grave  as  well  as 
the  gay  if  it  is  to  class  as  literature,  if  it  is  justly 
to  reflect  life,  if  it  is  to  be  of  social  service  in  the 
community. 

Once  upon  a  time  to  a  certain  sectarian  college 


276  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

came  a  student  from  the  rural  regions.  "I  want 
to  study  for  the  ministry,"  he  said,  "but  I  don't 
want  to  study  any  subjects  which  will  shake  my 
faith,  no  science  nor  anything  like  that.  My  faith 
is  grounded  on  the  Rock  of  the  Church,  and  I  pro- 
pose to  keep  it  there." 

The  wise  Dean  replied  that  if  his  faith  was  so 
insecure  that  it  would  not  resist  honest  study,  he 
had  better  go  back  to  the  farm. 

Are  not  those  good  souls  who  cannot  tolerate 
serious  social  drama  on  the  stage  "because  there  is 
enough  unhappiness  in  the  world,"  much  like  this 
prospective  parson*?  Their  faith  in  the  ultimate 
goodness  and  beauty  of  the  world  must  be  insecure 
indeed  if  they  cannot  face  the  depiction  of  its  evils 
on  the  stage  that  they  may  understand  those  evils 
better,  and,  through  a  better  understanding  and  a 
wider  sympathy,  gained  by  the  noble  service  of  Art, 
move  toward  the  day  when  there  is  less  "unhappi- 
ness" in  Life. 


GEORGE  ARLISS— A  STUDY  IN  ACTING 
1912 

When  Mrs.  Fiske  first  mounted  "Becky  Sharp" 
Tyrone  Power  played  the  Marquis  of  Steyne  and 
Maurice  Barrymore  played — and  how  he  played! 
— Rawdon  Crawley.  When  she  revived  the  drama 
a  few  years  later  poor  Barrymore  was  dead,  and  an 
actor  comparatively  new  to  our  stage,  though  his 
talents  were  already  well  recognized,  was  the  Lord 
Steyne.  His  name  was  George  Arliss,  and  his  first 
entrance  upon  the  scene  was  one  of  those  memorable 
examples  of  the  actor's  art  which,  once  witnessed, 
is  never  forgotten. 

Steyne  makes  his  appearance  in  Act  II,  coming 
out  on  the  broad  stair-landing  above  the  ball-room 
and  looking  down  upon  the  animated  scene  for  a  few 
moments  without  speaking.  No  entrance  is 
"worked  up"  for  him,  as  the  players  would  say. 
He  comes  quite  unheralded,  slipping  quietly  into 
the  picture.  In  Mrs.  Fiske's  production  the  ball- 
room was  done  in  a  general  color  scheme  of  yellow. 

277 


278  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

The  eyes  of  the  audience  during  the  preceding  por- 
tion of  the  act  were  fixed  upon  the  figures  moving 
animatedly  about  on  the  ball-room  floor.  "There 
was  a  sound  of  revelry  by  night,"  a  gay  atmosphere, 
nothing  sinister  nor  tragic.  But  suddenly  one  or 
two  persons  in  the  audience  felt  impelled  to  glance 
up  to  the  broad  stair-landing  above.  There,  sil- 
houetted sharply  against  the  lemon-yellow  wall, 
stood,  to  their  surprise,  a  new  figure  in  the  drama, 
a  smallish  figure  immaculate  in  black  silk  hose  and 
breeches  and  coat,  with  a  curiously  crafty,  malicious 
and  domineering  face  framed  between  its  dark 
whiskers  and  over  a  high  white  stock.  The  keen 
eyes  were  glancing  down  upon  the  bare  shoulders  of 
the  women.  A  smile  played  upon  the  sensuous  lips. 
But  the  figure  neither  moved  nor  spoke. 

Yet  this  silent  figure  had  riveted  the  attention  of 
those  few  persons  in  the  audience.  One  by  one 
others  in  the  audience  felt  curiously  impelled  to  look 
up,  and  their  attention,  too,  was  riveted.  Finally 
the  entire  audience,  forgetful  of  the  persons  on  the 
ball-room  floor,  was  looking  with  something  akin  to 
surprised  awe  at  the  black-clad,  smiling,  sinister 
figure  on  the  landing.  When  all  eyes  were  fixed 
upon  him,  the  figure  moved.  He  stepped  with  the 
grace  of  a  panther  down  the  stairs,  and  it  was  as  if 


GEORGE  ARLISS  279 

a  dark  shadow  of  evil,  of  tragedy,  settled  on  the  gay 
scene.  He  walked  over  to  Becky  and  spoke  in  a 
soft,  wheedling  voice;  and  it  was  as  if  her  tragedy 
had  met  her  face  to  face.  The  real  drama  had  be- 
gun. Then  came  the  cannon  of  Waterloo. 

The  actor  who,  unheralded  and  in  silence,  thus 
imposed  a  mood  on  an  entire  audience  (aided,  of 
course,  by  Mrs.  Fiske's  wonderful  sense  of  effect  in 
her  stage  management)  was  George  Arliss.  A  bet- 
ter illustration  could  hardly  be  found  of  Mr.  Arliss's 
power  to  bring  a  character  to  instant  life,  and  weld 
it  into  the  drama.  His  acting,  widely  appreciated 
and  liberally  rewarded,  we  are  glad  to  say,  is  one 
of  the  finer  things  of  the  American  stage,  and  a 
study  of  it  rewards  us  with  a  better  understanding 
of  and  a  greater  respect  for  the  whole  art  of  acting. 

How,  the  writer  recently  asked  Mr.  Arliss,  did 
he  rivet  the  attention  of  the  audience  in  "Becky 
Sharp"  before  he  had  spoken  a  word,  even  before 
many  in  the  audience  had  even  guessed  what  char- 
acter had  entered?  His  reply  was  significant.  It 
is  much  the  same  reply,  in  effect,  that  Duse  once 
made  to  a  similar  question.  It  connects  the  magic 
of  great  acting  directly  with  the  mystery  of  imagina- 
tion, and  ranks  the  great  actor  beyond  a  question  as 
a  creative  artist. 


280  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

"I  can  account  for  that  effect,"  said  Mr.  Arliss, 
"only  by  the  theory  that  even  before  I  left  my 
dressing  room  each  night  I  felt  the  situation.  I 
felt  how  like  an  ominous  black  shadow  of  evil  the 
real  Lord  Steyne  must  have  descended  on  the  scene 
— incarnate  power,  the  power  of  wealth,  of  posi- 
tion, of  craftiness  and  will,  all  bent  on  cruel  ends. 
When  I  came  out  on  the  landing  that  idea  possessed 
my  whole  imagination.  Technically,  I  think  many 
actors  quite  underestimate  the  power  of  the  eye,  and 
perhaps  my  use  of  my  eyes  as  I  stood  on  the  landing 
had  something  to  do  with  the  effect.  But  I  cannot 
avoid  the  conviction  that  when  the  actor  himself  is 
caught  up  into  the  imaginative  life  of  the  character 
and  the  scene,  then,  and  then  alone,  can  he,  by  some 
mysterious  process,  communicate  a  fire  to  the  imag- 
inations of  his  audience. 

"There  are  times  when  one  feels  abominably 
one's  self  on  the  stage,  tremendously  healthy,  when 
one's  thoughts  will  stray  to  golf  or  a  tramp  in  the 
country.  And  then  one  feels  that  heavy  atmos- 
phere of  the  play  which  envelops  you  behind  the 
proscenium,  or  should  envelop  you  if  you  have  the 
actor's  temperament,  dispelled;  and  just  as  certain 
as  death  or  taxes  one  feels,  at  the  same  moment,  his 
audience  slipping  from  him,  and  hears  the  restless 


GEORGE  ARLISS  281 

cough.  That  is  an  excellent  reason  for  having  good 
actors  and  actresses  in  the  company  with  you. 
They  help  to  maintain  the  atmosphere  of  illusion 
not  only  for  the  audience  but,  quite  as  importantly, 
for  the  star  or  leading  players.  That  is  one  reason 
why  it  is  so  satisfactory  to  play  with  Mrs.  Fiske. 
She  lives  every  moment  the  life  of  the  play,  and  in 
her  electric  atmosphere  your  imagination,  too,  sus- 
tains you  in  the  .illusion." 

Imagination,  then,  is  the  life  blood  of  fine  acting, 
as  of  any  of  the  creative  arts.  But  imagination 
without  training,  without  technical  command  of  the 
tools  of  the  trade,  is  of  slight  avail.  It  is  because 
Mr.  Arliss  combines  imagination  with  a  fine  and 
resourceful  technique  and  a  broad  intelligence,  that 
his  art  is  a  model  and  a  standard  on  our  contempor- 
ary stage. 

How  he  achieved  his  technique  is  a  valuable 
lesson  to  the  younger  actors  of  the  day — though, 
fortunately  for  us,  Mr.  Arliss  himself  is  still  in  his 
prime.  He  was  bom  in  England  in  1868,  and  first 
acted  in  1887.  His  first  year  on  the  stage  was 
spent  in  an  obscure  London  stock  company  "over 
the  water"  on  the  Surrey  side  (which  might  be  Jer- 
sey City  or  Hoboken) — a  company  which  mounted 
a  new  play  every  week.  His  second  season  was 


282  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

spent  with  a  provincial  road  company  wherein  he 
played  twenty  leading  parts.  Those  first  two  sea- 
sons, he  says,  were  the  most  valuable  of  his  career. 

During  the  first  year  the  novice,  yet  to  enter  his 
majority,  played  a  new  part  every  week,  all  of  them 
small  parts;  and  because  they  were  small  parts,  and 
because  the  company  was  a  cheap  one  without  time 
for  careful  stage  direction,  he  was  left  free  to  play 
his  parts  as  he  saw  fit.  One  week  he  was  a  police- 
man, one  week  a  clerk,  another  time  a  rustic.  He 
could  make  these  characters  young  or  old,  as  he 
wished.  The  young  actor,  full  of  ambition,  made 
it  his  task  to  study  each  little  part  as  carefully  as  he 
could.  If  he  was  to  play  a  London  clerk,  for  ex- 
ample, he  watched  actual  clerks  till  he  found  one 
who  seemed,  in  dress  and  manner,  either  to  be  a  type 
of  his  class  or  to  represent  something  that  would  be 
effective  on  the  stage.  Then  Mr.  Arliss  would  go 
home  and  design  a  hat  or  a  collar  or  a  wig  or  a 
suit  of  clothes,  or  all  combined,  that  he  might  look, 
as  well  as  talk  and  act,  like  this  type  from  life  he 
had  been  watching. 

"Anything  I  saw  on  the  streets  which  I  thought 
effective  dramatically  I  managed  to  get  on  to  the 
stage  before  a  fortnight,"  Mr.  Arliss  says.  "And 
what  was  the  result*?  Sometimes  I  fear  it  was,  im- 


GEORGE  ARLISS  283 

mediately,  to  upset  the  balance  of  the  performance, 
but  for  me  personally  it  was  the  finest  kind  of  train- 
ing. Not  only  did  I  skill  my  eye  to  observation, 
but  I  acquired  a  whole  stock  of  effects  which  have 
remained  in  the  background  of  my  memory,  and  to 
this  day  when  I  am  called  on  to  play  this  part  or 
that,  almost  unconsciously  these  memories  come  to 
my  aid,  and  I  know  what  I  can  achieve  and  how  I 
can  achieve  it.  The  young  actor  who  begins  on 
Broadway  with  a  single  part,  plays  it  for  two  sea- 
sons, and  then  plays  a  second  part  for  two  seasons 
more,  and  so  on  till  he  is  old,  will  never,  save  by 
a  miracle,  learn  to  be  an  actor.  He  will  not  learn 
the  tools  of  his  trade." 

The  next  year  saw  Mr.  Arliss,  still  with  a  cheap 
company,  touring  the  provinces.  He  was  now 
playing  leading  roles,  however,  twenty  of  them,  of 
all  sorts,  and  experimenting  with  audiences  inces- 
santly. A  decade  of  acting  in  London  followed. 
Then,  in  1901,  Mr.  Arliss  came  to  America,  sup- 
porting Mrs.  Patrick  Campbell.  New  York  first 
saw  him  as  Cayley  Brummie  in  "The  Second  Mrs. 
Tanqueray,"  and  enjoyed  the  crisp,  worldly  humor, 
the  polished  urbanity,  the  lurking  tenderness  of  that 
performance.  It  next  enjoyed  him  as  the  Duke  of 
St.  Olpherts  in  "The  Notorious  Mrs.  Ebbsmith," 


284  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

and  felt  a  touch  of  his  cynical  power  as  well  as  his 
polish.  Fortunately  for  us,  he  did  not  go  back  to 
England  to  act.  David  Belasco,  who  may  be  relied 
on  to  know  acting  when  he  sees  it,  kept  him  here  to 
play  the  cruel  and  crafty  old  Japanese,  Zakkuri,  in 
"The  Darling  of  the  Gods,"  a  part  wherein  his 
powers  for  sinister  suggestion  and  for  sheer  physical 
illusion  of  "make  up"  had  full  scope. 
•—  But,  equally  fortunately  for  us,  Mr.  Arliss  did 
not  remain  with  Mr.  Belasco.  We  say  fortunately, 
because  Mr.  Belasco,  with  all  his  marvelous  skill 
as  a  stage  director,  is  too  often  enamoured  of  the 
merely  theatrical  drama,  and  there  is  too  seldom 
any  underlying  basis  of  intellectual  or  social  pur- 
pose and  truth-seeking  in  the  plays  he  writes  or 
stages.  Mr.  Arliss  transferred  his  support  to  Mrs. 
Fiske,  and  with  her,  at  last,  he  was  in  company 
worthy  of  his  finest  efforts,  and  likely  to  induce 
them.  With  her,  he  truly  established  himself  as 
a  leading  actor  of  our  stage,  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
word. 

With  Mrs.  Fiske  he  played  such  diverse  roles  as 
Lord  Steyne  in  "Becky  Sharp,"  Judge  Brack  in 
"Hedda  Gabler,"  Ulric  Brendel  in  "Rosmersholm," 
Raoul  Berton  in  "Leah  Kleschna,"  and  the  old 
Frenchman  in  Mrs.  Fiske's  own  one-act  play,  "Eyes 


GEORGE  ARLISS  285 

of  the  Heart."  Lord  Steyne  was  a  crafty,  power- 
ful, distinguished  man  of  the  world;  Berton  in 
"Leah  Kleschna"  was  a  degenerate  young  French 
blade.  The  two  parts,  wide  as  the  poles,  were  as 
widely  differentiated  by  the  actor.  One  was  by 
turns  hypocritically  suave,  worldly,  urbane,  grim, 
powerful,  not-to-be-denied;  and  in  its  physical 
aspect  an  astonishing  replica  of  Thackeray's  own 
drawing  for  the  character.  The  other  was  juvenile, 
devil-may-care,  and  physically,  thanks  in  part  to 
the  actor's  wonderful  use  of  his  legs,  arms,  and 
nervous,  expressive  hands  and  fingers,  almost  a 
study  in  degeneracy.  Still  again,  his  Ibsen  char- 
acters were  no  less  sharply  cut,  and  carried  with 
them  the  chill  atmosphere  of  the  Old  Man  of  the 
North. 

It  was  after  his  seasons  with  Mrs.  Fiske  that  Mr. 
Arliss  first  appeared  as  a  star,  not  a  star  created  be- 
cause his  "personality"  pleased  the  public,  but  be- 
cause he  possessed  the  ripeness  of  technique,  the 
power  of  suggestion,  the  insight  and  the  under- 
standing, to  play  stellar  parts.  His  first  venture 
was  made  in  the  early  fall  of  1907,  in  the  title  role 
of  "The  Devil,"  a  rather  cheap  and  unimaginative 
play  by  an  Hungarian,  in  which  the  leading  actor 
wore  a  frock  coat  over  his  supposed  tail,  boots  over 


286  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

his  cloven  hoofs,  and  symbolized  temptation  at  the 
ear  of  a  man  and  a  maid,  who,  truth  to  tell,  needed 
no  external  propulsion  to  drive  them  into  sin.  An- 
other manager  put  out  another  Devil  at  the  same 
time,  and  the  two  productions  at  least  served  to 
show  how  much  more  subtle,  suggestive,  polished 
and  imaginative  was  the  art  of  Mr.  Arliss  than  that 
of  his  rival. 

From  the  evil  omniscience  of  the  Devil  to  the 
childlike  simplicity  and  delicate  goodness  of  Septi- 
mus, in  a  dramatization  of  Mr.  Locke's  story,  was 
the  wide  step  Mr.  Arliss  next  chose  to  take.  "Sep- 
timus," the  drama,  fell  far  short  of  "Septimus," 
the  novel,  and  failed.  But  we  had,  at  least,  the 
opportunity  to  see  that  Mr.  Arliss's'  "personality" 
was  not  the  cause  of  his  success  in  sinister  roles, 
since  here  he  no  less  successfully  suggested  whim- 
sical childlikeness  and  goodness  of  heart.  With 
what  minute  and  careful  touches  he  built  up  the 
quaint  picture  of  Septimus  the  dreamer  and  eccen- 
tric! His  delicate  fingers,  nervously  sinister  as 
Steyne  or  Berton,  were  here  used  to  suggest  the  in- 
ventor, and  the  man  of  gentle  ways.  When  some 
one  departed  from  the  room,  he  said  "Good-bye" 
after  they  had  gone,  as  if  his  wits  were  but  just 
come  back  from  wool  gathering,  and  in  a  flash 


GEORGE  ARLISS  287 

touched  the  character  to  life.  And  here,  in  his 
quiet,  perfectly  modulated  voice,  was  not  the  oily 
craftiness  of  Steyne,  purring  over  Becky,  but  gentle 
wistfulness  or  humor.  His  imaginative  grasp  of 
the  character  seemed  actually  to  color  his  tones. 

Finally  we  are  now  seeing  Mr.  Arliss  in  New 
York  this  winter  (as  Chicago  saw  him  last)  in  a 
character  different  alike  from  Steyne  or  Septimus, 
from  Devil  or  saint,  as  that  brilliant  and  contradic- 
tory historic  figure  of  mid- Victorian  England,  the 
Jew,  Disraeli,  set  in  a  drama  by  Louis  N.  Parker. 
It  is  a  brilliant  portrait  that  Mr.  Arliss  has  painted, 
one  of  the  true  acting  achievements  of  the  winter, 
one  of  those  achievements  in  character  delineation 
which  remind  us  that  large  and  stirring  and  vivid 
acting  did  not  perish  with  Richard  Mansfield,  after 
all. 

Considerable  nonsense  has  been  printed  in  the 
Sunday  papers  about  Mr.  Arliss's  methods  of  make 
up  for  this  part.  Considerable  nonsense  is  always 
being  printed  in  the  Sunday  papers  about  one  thing 
or  another.  According  to  the  papers,  Mr.  Arliss 
scurried  all  over  Paris  in.  quest  of  a  wig  which  might 
exactly  match  one  worn  by  "Dizzy"  himself.  "As 
a  matter  of  fact,"  the  actor  says,  "I  did  what  any 
sensible  person  would  do, — I  looked  at  an  authentic 


288  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

portrait  of  Disraeli,  and  then  went  to  a  wig  maker 
with  my  instructions.  I  had  his  clothes  copied  in 
the  same  rather  obvious  and  practical  manner,  after 
looking  at  the  collection  of  Disraeli  relics  in  the 
South  Kensington  Museum."  From  which  we  may 
infer  that  Mr.  Arliss's  art  remains  free  of  bun- 
combe. 

"I  had  always,  from  my  youth,  been  interested 
in  Disraeli,  both  as  a  man  and  a  possible  stage 
figure,"  he  continued,  "but  when  it  was  assured  at 
last  that  I  was  to  put  him  on  the  stage,  I  stopped 
reading  about  him  altogether,  and  waited  till  the 
completed  manuscript  was  in  my  hands  before  re- 
suming study.  I  did  this  that  I  might  see  the  char- 
acter in  relation  to  the  actual  drama,  rather  than  in 
relation  to  history,  and  so  have  the  squint  on  it  my 
audiences  were  bound  to  have.  Once  the  manu- 
script was  before  me,  I  began  to  study  Dizzy's  life 
and  works  for  the  character  details  that  would  fit 
with  Mr.  Parker's  play.  That  seemed  to  me  the 
only  way  in  which  I  could  be  fair  at  once  to  history 
and  to  the  drama.  Doubtless  my  impersonation, 
no  less  than  the  play,  lacks  something  of  historical 
correctness,  but  Mr.  Parker  and  I  have  both  tried 
to  interpret  for  the  present  the  essential  spirit  of  the 


GEORGE  ARLISS  289 

man  and  his  period,  in  a  manner  that  shall  still  be 
interesting  as  acted  drama." 

Sensible  words,  these.  How  nearly  Mr.  Arliss  is 
like  the  real  Dizzy  we  fancy  the  majority  of  his 
audiences  do  not  greatly  care,  nor  always  realize. 
Dizzy  was  something  of  a  fop,  we  all  know,  and 
Mr.  Arliss  catches  this  suggestion.  But  he  was  a 
brilliant  man  besides,  with  a  Shavian  gift  of  epi- 
gram, and  Mr.  Arliss  tosses  off  those  epigrams  as 
brilliantly  and  spontaneously  as  could  be  desired. 
Disraeli,  too,  was  Prime  Minister  of  England,  in 
the  face  of  opposition,  and  that  meant  crafty  power 
and  iron  will  behind  the  suave,  dandified  ways  and 
the  bantering,  sharp-edged  epigrams.  Not  the  least 
effective  feature  of  Mr.  Arliss's  impersonation  is  his 
constant  suggestion  of  this  power  and  will,  a  sug- 
gestion made  without  our  being  conscious  of  the 
method.  Merely,  he  dominates  the  scene  when  he 
is  present;  he  holds  the  attention  just  as  the  striking 
personality  of  Disraeli  would  in  life;  he  brings  the 
spectator  under  the  spell  of  his  eyes  and  voice. 
Finally,  Disraeli  was,  with  it  all,  a  good  bit  of  a 
bluff — and  knew  he  was ;  and  a  good  bit  of  a  humor- 
ist, with  a  warm  corner  in  his  heart  for  his  elderly 
wife ;  and  a  good  bit  of  a  dreamer,  too,  who  saw  an 


290  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

imperial  England  with  an  Oriental's  eyes.  It  is 
easy  to  find  the  suggestion  of  all  these  contradictory 
traits  clearly  made  in  Mr.  Arliss's  portrait,  and  yet 
fused  into  unity,  as  in  the  man  himself. 

The  imagination  which  lies  behind  such  a  piece  of 
acting,  planning  it  consistently,  guiding  it,  welding 
it  into  the  drama  without  violence  to  history,  is  an 
imagination  to  respect.  The  technical  skill  to  make 
the  careful  plan  plain  and  potent  for  the  audience, 
to  color  the  voice,  to  suggest  power,  distinction, 
craftiness,  humor,  tenderness,  in  rapid  succession, 
to  speak  epigrams  naturally,  not  by  rote,  to  inspire 
something  of  the  dignity  of  a  prime  minister  and 
the  romance  of  the  Jew,  is  a  technical  skill  as  re- 
markable as  it  is  rare.  Who  of  our  younger  actors 
has  such  skill1?  Who  has  had  the  training  to  de- 
velop such  skill"?  For,  while  the  actor's  imagina- 
tion is  born  with  him,  his  technique  must  be  ac- 
quired. 

Indeed,  the  actors,  young  or  old,  on  our  stage  to- 
day who  can  compare  with  George  Arliss,  either  in 
imagination  or  technical  proficiency,  are  few  and  far 
between.  He  represents  for  us  acting  in  its  best  es- 
tate, an  art  at  once  broad  and  subtle,  vivid  as  life,  and 
truly  creative.  To  miss  seeing  him  is  to  miss  one 
of  the  finest  pleasures  of  our  contemporary  theater. 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  PLAY? 

1912 

One  of  the  favorite  sports  of  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  population  is  scoffing  at  the  dramatic 
critics.  It  is  not,  however,  a  defense  of  dramatic 
criticism  we  propose  to  write  here.  Criticism  that 
is  serious  and  sincere  needs  no  defense,  for  it  is 
inevitable,  whether  we  like  and  agree  with  it  or  not ; 
and  the  more  serious  and  sincere  our  drama  is,  the 
more  criticism  we  shall  have.  The  serious  drama  is 
a  record,  presented  for  public  consideration,  of  the 
dramatist's  vision  and  philosophy  of  life — whether 
he  is  conscious  of  it  or  not.  And  no  public  presen- 
tation of  so  important  a  matter  can,  or  should,  pass 
without  challenge  and  consideration.  Such  chal- 
lenge and  consideration  is  any  criticism  worthy  of 
the  name.  If  it  concerns  itself  merely  with  a  few 
technical  rules,  or  seeks  merely  to  fill  a  column  in  an 
evening  paper  with  jesting,  or  to  inform  the  public 
whether  such  and  such  a  play  is  going  to  run  three 

weeks  or  three  months,  it  is  hardly  criticism  at  all. 

291 


292  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

When  we  attack  dramatic  criticism,  it  might  be  well 
to  reflect  first  whether  it  is  criticism  we  are  attack- 
ing. Such  reflection  would  save  us  a  lot  of  breath. 

The  residue  of  theatrical  reporting,  the  real  criti- 
cism, is  most  often  scoffed  at  because  its  verdicts  dis- 
agree with  our  personal  tastes  or  judgments  (which, 
in  untrained  minds,  are  usually  the  same).  It  may 
not  be  amiss,  then,  to  set  forth  by  examples  of  re- 
cent seasons  certain  principles  which  guide  the  critic 
to  his  judgments,  to  show  the  reasons  why  he  calls 
this  play  good  and  that  play  bad.  Recently  the 
writer  of  this  paper  received  a  letter  from  a  some- 
what irate  reader,  which  contained  the  following  bit 
of  argument — "I  should  like  to  know  what  you 
think  of  Ibsen  and  'The  Man  from  Home.' "  To 
tell  all  we  think  of  Ibsen  would,  unfortunately,  re- 
quire more  space  than  the  editor  will  allow  us.  To 
tell  what  we  think  of  "The  Man  from  Home,"  how- 
ever, calls  for  less  room.  We  think  it  a  pleasant 
and  popular  piece  of  extremely  parochial  jingo. 
We  should  class  it  as  an  excellent  bad  play.  But  it 
is  of  the  good  plays  we  should  prefer  to  speak  at 
this  time,  taking  up  several  that  are  fresh  in  memory, 
and  showing,  if  possible,  why  the  critics  praised 
them,  either  in  accordance  with,  or  in  defiance  of, 
the  popular  verdict. 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  PLAY?          293 

After  twelve  years  of  constant  analytic  attendance 
at  the  theatre,  we  are  ourselves  persuaded  that  un- 
derlying all  other  questions,  technical  or  what  not, 
is  the  question  of  the  playwright's  sincerity.  Did 
he  write  his  play  because  the  theme  or  the  characters 
interested  him,  did  he  write  it  to  please  himself,  to 
express  himself;  or  did  he  write  it  because  he  fancied 
such  a  theme  or  such  a  set  of  characters  would  strike 
the  popular  fancy?  The  machine-made  dramas, 
written  to  the  order  of  such  and  such  a  star,  the 
vain  efforts  of  one  playwright  to  repeat  another's 
success  in  certain  lines,  or  to  duplicate  his  own,  may 
have  all  the  supposedly  requisite  technical  excel- 
lencies. But  they  are  invariably  at  most  but  the 
success  of  an  hour,  and  they  are  invariably  poor 
plays  from  any  higher  consideration.  A  man  may 
write  his  heart  out,  and  still  produce  a  poor  drama, 
to  be  sure,  for  lack  of  the  technical  gift.  But  no 
man  with  only  the  technical  gift  and  a  desire  to 
make  money  can  ever  write  a  good  play,  a  play, 
that  is,  which  will  ring  true  and  stand  the  test  of 
revival. 

The  first  test  a  critic  applies  to  a  new  work,  then, 
is  this  test  of  sincerity.  And  no  more  striking 
examples  of  sincerity  are  to  be  found  on  the  modern 
stage  than  the  plays  of  John  Galsworthy.  It  is  nei- 


294  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

ther  their  theme  nor  their  literary  polish  which  pri- 
marily causes  their  high  estimation  by  critics  and  the 
judicious  amateurs.  It  is  the  still,  white  flame  of 
passionate  sincerity  which  illuminates  them.  The 
author  isn't  writing  to  please  us,  he  is  writing  to  tell 
us  about  certain  men  and  women  he  has  observed, 
to  plead  with  us  to  understand  these  people;  he  is 
asking  us  to  look  with  him  upon  this  or  that  episode 
of  real  life  (set  by  him  upon  the  stage),  and  to 
comprehend  a  little  clearer  its  significance.  That  is 
why  his  plays  seem  so  worth  while,  so  like  a  real 
experience  rather  than  a  mere  entertainment.  And 
that,  primarily,  is  why  the  critics  praise  them  so 
highly. 

Three  of  these  plays  have  been  professionally  pro- 
duced in  America,  "The  Silver  Box"  by  Miss  Ethel 
Barrymore,  "Strife"  by  the  New  Theatre,  and,  most 
recently,  "The  Pigeon"  at  Mr.  Ames'  Little  The- 
atre. The  first  failed  largely  because  Miss  Barry- 
more's  public  were  not  yet  ready  to  receive  her  in 
anything  but  pretty  piffle.  The  second  shared  in 
the  general  failure  of  the  New  Theatre  project. 
The  last  was  a  success  with  Mr.  Ames'  public.  But 
success  or  failure  with  a  certain  public  cannot 
rightly  affect  the  critic's  judgments.  These  plays 
were  acclaimed,  then,  first  for  their  sincerity,  their 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  PLAY?          295 

honest,  truthful,  sympathetic  presentation  of  a  hu- 
man situation,  and  secondarily  for  their  literary  skill 
and  distinction,  and  technical  expertness.  These 
latter  qualities,  of  course,  appeal  more  consciously 
to  the  critic  than  to  the  playgoer ;  and  to  some  play- 
goers they  do  not  appeal  at  all.  They  are  most 
widely  valued  in  a  community  where  the  largest 
number  of  theatre-goers  are  aesthetically  well  edu- 
cated, as  in  Paris.  But  as  it  is  a  part  of  the  critic's 
mission  to  help  in  the  process  of  aesthetic  education, 
he  cannot  ignore  them  if  he  would. 

William  Archer,  in  his  new  book,  "Play  Making," 
says,  "The  French  plays  (of  Brieux),  in  my  judg- 
ment, suffer  artistically  from  the  obtrusive  predom- 
inance of  the  theme — that  is  to  say,  the  abstract  ele- 
ment— over  the  human  and  concrete  factors  in  the 
composition.  Mr.  Galsworthy's  more  delicate  and 
unemphatic  art  eludes  this  danger,  at  any  rate  in 
"Strife."  We  do  not  remember  until  all  is  over  that 
his  characters  represent  classes,  and  his  action  is,  one 
might  almost  say,  a  sociological  symbol." 

This  is  a  tribute  at  once  to  his  literary  and  techni- 
cal skill,  and  to  his  sincerity.  We  do  not  feel 
"Strife"  to  be  a  tract  on  the  labor  question  nor  "The 
Pigeon"  a  sermon  on  the  need  of  love  and  sympathy 
for  our  fallen  fellow  beings,  because  Mr.  Gals- 


296  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

worthy  is  human  enough  himself  to  put  real  laborers 
and  real  fallen  fellow  beings  upon  the  stage,  and 
skilful  enough  to  let  them  tell  their  own  story,  in- 
stead of  putting  labeled  puppets  on  the  stage  and 
preaching  about  them.  If  Mr.  Galsworthy's  plays 
fail  of  a  wide  popularity,  that  is  because  their  themes 
are  sober  and  thoughtful,  and  they  lack  the  sex  ele- 
ment a  conventional  public  has  come  to  expect. 
But  they  have  in  a  remarkable  degree  that  attribute 
of  sincerity  which  inspires  respect;  they  seem  real 
episodes  in  the  lives  of  real  people,  not  machines 
concocted  to  amuse  or  thrill;  and  they  are  written 
with  technical  expertness  and  distinction  of  dialogue. 
That  is  why  the  critic  acclaims  them. 

Taking  now  two  plays  of  widely  different  sort, 
the  Scotch  comedy,  "Bunty  Pulls  the  Strings,"  and 
that  one-act  Irish  masterpiece,  "Riders  to  the  Sea," 
we  find  the  first  has  been  enormously  popular  both 
in  New  York  and  Chicago,  while  Synge's  drama, 
when  presented  by  the  Irish  Players  here,  drew  only 
half  a  handful  of  people.  Yet  the  critic  calls  them 
both  good  plays,  and  probably  considers  the  less 
popular  the  finer  drama.  Why? 

Anybody  can  tell  why  he  likes  "Bunty  Pulls  the 
Strings."  It  is  funny.  It  is  funny  because  it  so 
neatly  and  wittily  and  lovingly  hits  off  the  foibles 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  PLAY?          297 

of  the  Scotch  character  and  manners.  The  story 
of  the  play  alone  would  not  make  it  a  popular  suc- 
cess, nor  a  critical.  Indeed,  it  is  rather  a  simple, 
obvious  and  old-fashioned  story.  But  the  char- 
acters are  all  odd,  humorous  and  interesting.  We 
delight  to  watch  Bunty  manage  the  whole  commun- 
munity.  We  delight  in  the  quaint  accent  and 
idiom,  in  the  quaint  costumes,  in  the  flavor  and  at- 
mosphere of  the  story.  Here  is  a  case  where  mere 
academic  structure  counts  for  far  less  than  the  em- 
broidery. Yet  any  critic  who  is  not  a  hidebound 
formalist  is  bound  to  call  it  a  good  play,  because 
it  does  rouse  our  interest  and  our  mirth,  it  creates 
its  mood  and  lets  us  see  into  the  life  of  a  Scotch 
village ;  it  does,  in  short,  what  it  sets  out  to  do.  It 
is  truthful  and  it  is  funny. 

There  is  nothing  funny  about  "Riders  to  the 
Sea."  That  solemn,  heart-searching  little  master- 
piece is  almost  Greek  in  its  tragic  simplicity.  But 
it,  too,  is  honest,  and  it  does  what  it  sets  out  to  do. 
It  sets  out  to  create  in  the  auditor  a  sense  of  the 
terrible  spectre  of  Death  which  broods  over  the 
fishermen's  huts  on  the  bleak  west  coast  of  Ireland, 
and  yet  to  create  it  in  such  language — the  poetic 
language  of  a  sensitive  peasant  people — that  there 
is  a  solemn  beauty  in  the  performance,  and  the  play 


298  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

is  not  brutal  but  almost  spiritual,  tragic  yet  lovely. 
It  has  always  been  the  mission  of  true  poetry  so  to 
touch  with  transforming  wand  the  themes  of  Fate 
and  Death.  No  man  with  a  soul  above  the  brute 
can  sit  before  the  Irish  Players'  performance  of 
"Riders  to  the  Sea"  without  feeling  at  once  its  tragic 
solemnity  and  its  searching  poetry.  Its  language, 
always  the  language  these  Celtic  peasants  might 
naturally  use,  falls  like  hushed  music  on  the  ear, 
though  it  brings  the  flutter  of  the  wings  of  Death. 
That  is  why  the  critic  calls  this  not  only  a  good 
play,  but  a  great  play;  and  though  a  public  which 
likes  always  to  laugh  avoids  it  in  America,  the  critic 
feels  that  it  will  still  be  performed  when  "The  Man 
From  Home"  has  retired  to  Kokomo  forever. 

We  may  also  contrast  two  other  plays,  both  of 
which  the  critics  called  good,  but  only  one  of  which 
enjoyed  much  patronage  in  this  country,  "The  Con- 
cert," produced  by  Mr.  Belasco,  and  "The  Thunder- 
bolt," by  Pinero,  produced  both  by  the  New  The- 
atre, and,  more  recently,  by  the  Chicago  Theatre 
Society  last  winter.  The  critic  calls  "The  Concert" 
a  good  play  (quite  aside  from  the  merits  of  Mr. 
Belasco's  particular  production)  because  with 
shrewd  worldly  wisdom  and  humor  the  author  holds 
up  and  dissects  types  of  character,  particularly  the 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  PLAY?          299 

character  of  a  childish,  egotistical,  much  flattered 
piano  virtuoso  (type  of  the  "artistic  tempera- 
ment"), and  the  character  of  the  steady,  comfort- 
able, forgiving  wife.  The  absurdities  of  such 
women  as  lose  their  heads  over  musicians  are  also 
satirized.  This  play  is  good  because  it  has  these 
elements  of  truth,  fused  into  a  well  made  and  inter- 
esting story.  This  play  is  successful,  of  course,  be- 
cause its  truth  is  patent  and  its  interest  and  fun 
unflagging. 

Now,  "The  Thunderbolt"  is  a  satire  on  types  of 
character,  also,  on  middle-class  British  smugness, 
hypocrisy  and  money  greed  (but  British  more  in 
externals  than  otherwise,  since  money  greed  and 
smugness  have  been  known  to  exist  elsewhere!). 
Because  its  characters  are  human  and  true,  its  story 
well  knit  and  sustained,  its  sincerity  and  interest 
unescapable,  the  critic  is  just  as  bound  to  call  this 
a  good  play  as  "The  Concert."  Yet  the  public 
went  to  "The  Concert"  but  not  to  "The  Thunder- 
bolt." Why?  Not  because  they  considered  "The 
Thunderbolt"  a  bad  play,  but  because  its  satire  is 
too  mordant  and  grim,  its  story  too  harsh,  its  picture 
too  pitifully  revealing  of  the  sordid  side  of  our  frail 
humanity — that,  and  also  a  little,  one  is  sure,  be- 
cause it  was  produced  at  the  New  Theatre  and  by 


300  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

the  Chicago  Players,  and  so  shared  in  the  public 
indifference  toward  those  institutions.  Such  audi- 
ences as  did  see  it  felt  its  power  and  most  of  them 
followed  its  story  with  complete  absorption.  That 
a  thoughtless  theatre-goer  doesn't  like  "The  Thun- 
derbolt," because  it  oppresses  him,  is  no  reason  at  all 
why  he  should  leap  with  both  feet  upon  the  critic 
who  praises  it.  The  critic  does  not  ask  whether  it 
is  pleasant  or  unpleasant,  but  whether  it  is  true, 
whether  its  characters  are  real  people,  its  story  well 
knit  and  logical,  its  author's  deductions,  his  "crit- 
icism of  life,"  sound  and  just.  Finding  them  to  be 
so  in  "The  Thunderbolt,"  he  is  in  duty  bound  to 
proclaim  it  a  good  play.  Only  if  he  failed  to  do 
so  should  he  be  leaped  upon.  The  time  may  yet 
come  when  enough  of  the  public  will  find  enter- 
tainment in  truth,  whether  grave  or  gay,  rather  than 
in  mere  jesting  or  in  truth  only  when  it  is  pleasant, 
to  make  such  works  as  "The  Thunderbolt"  success- 
ful in  proportion  to  their  real  merits. 

The  later  plays  of  Augustus  Thomas  have,  fortu- 
nately, pleased  both  critics  and  public.  They  have 
pleased  the  critics  because,  without  sacrificing  that 
narrative  interest  in  a  well  sustained  story  which 
was  always  the  basis  of  Mr.  Thomas's  appeal,  they 
have  revealed,  besides,  a  purpose  to  make  that  story 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  PLAY?          301 

significant  of  some  larger  idea.  Both  in  "The 
Witching  Hour"  and  "As  a  Man  Thinks,"  Mr. 
Thomas  has  shown  real  people  on  the  stage,  talk- 
ing naturally  yet  with  a  certain  distinction,  and  in- 
volved in  an  interesting  set  of  situations.  Yet 
these  situations  have  been  cleverly  chosen  to  illus- 
trate some  phase  of  the  author's  philosophy  of  life 
— chiefly,  one  guesses,  a  belief  that  our  inner 
thoughts  have  a  tremendous  dynamic  power  in  shap- 
ing our  characters,  our  outward  acts,  even  the  for- 
tunes of  those  about  us.  Mr.  Thomas  really  be- 
lieves this.  His  later  plays  have  a  ring  of  sincerity. 
It  is  a  belief  that  has  great  powers  for  good.  There- 
fore his  plays  gain  an  added  importance.  And, 
since  this  message  they  bear  is  one  of  cheer,  and 
since  they  do  not  bear  it  in  the  form  of  a  sermon 
but  a  good  story,  they  are  popular  with  all  theatre- 
goers, as  well  as  with  the  critics. 

"The  Typhoon,"  now  being  played  by  Walker 
Whiteside,  is  an  excellent  example  of  a  play  which 
the  critic  is  obliged  at  once  to  praise  and  to  con- 
demn, to  praise  for  its  underlying  theme  and  its  gen- 
eral truth,  to  condemn  for  its  technical  shortcom- 
ings. It  is  a  popular  play,  because  its  theme  is 
of  such  novelty  and  interest  that  the  shortcomings 
are  not  sufficiently  felt  by  the  public  to  destroy  the 


302  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

appeal.  The  theme  of  "The  Typhoon"  is  the  con- 
trasted characters  and  ideals  of  the  Japanese  and 
the  Europeans.  A  Japanese  diplomat  is  shown  at 
Berlin,  engaged  on  a  secret  and  important  work  for 
his  government.  He  becomes  entangled  with  a 
European  courtesan,  and  finally  he  loses  that  self- 
control  which  is  an  ideal  of  his  race,  and  murders 
her.  He  is  only  able  to  finish  his  work  because  one 
of  his  countrymen,  regarding  the  national  mission 
as  of  more  importance  than  his  own  life,  takes  the 
blame  for  the  crime.  Broadly,  the  play  shows  the 
intense  racial  self-possession  of  the  Japanese,  their 
overpowering  national  consciousness,  their  total 
antithesis  to  Occidental  individualism.  It  is  true 
to  the  type  depicted,  and  the  story  is  told  with  much 
embellishment  of  exotic  atmosphere.  It  also  has 
its  moments  of  great  theatrical  excitement.  Hence 
its  popular  appeal.  So  far,  it  is  a  good  play.  But 
it  has  many  structural  weaknesses.  In  the  first 
place,  we  are  never  told  what  that  great  "work" 
the  Japanese  diplomat  is  doing  consists  of.  We  do 
not  see  why  it  should  be  of  such  profound  impor- 
tance to  Japan.  In  the  second  place,  many  of  the 
scenes  are  crudely  handled,  so  that  the  illusion  of 
reality  is  lost.  Sometimes  the  Japanese  babble  in 
their  native  tongue  (or  what  is  supposed  to  be  their 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  PLAY?          303 

native  tongue)  and  sometimes  they  talk  English. 
The  closing  of  the  play  is  blind.  Moreover,  one 
wonders  what  would  become  of  the  point  that  a 
Japanese  is  ruined  by  the  Occidental  love  passion 
if  the  European  woman  had  been  a  good  woman, 
instead  of  a  scarlet  lady.  Such  points  as  these  are 
flaws  in  workmanship  and  logic,  and  the  critic  is 
bound  to  condemn  them,  even  in  the  most  popular 
of  plays.  They  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  master- 
pieces of  the  drama,  where  perfect  workmanship 
unites  with  depth  or  charm  of  idea  and  truth  of 
character — and  it  is  by  the  masterpieces  that  the 
critic  judges. 

A  frequent  criticism  of  critics  is  that  they  are 
over  given  to  praising  gloom  and  depreciating  mirth. 
Critical  wrath  against  the  "happy  ending,"  how- 
ever, is  not  due  to  the  fact  that  the  critics  love 
laughter  less  but  that  they  love  logic  more.  No- 
body in  his  senses  objects  to  a  happy  ending  to  a 
comedy.  It  is  when  the  happy  ending  is  arbitrar- 
ily tacked  on  a  play  which  was  foreordained  to  a 
tragic  conclusion  that  the  critic  rages.  Any  play 
which  sets  out  to  depict  a  set  of  circumstances  which, 
to  be  true  to  life  and  significant  as  a  commentary 
on  society,  has  to  end  unhappily,  and  then  deliber- 
ately, to  please  the  ladies  and  matinee  maids,  throws 


304  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

everybody  into  somebody  else's  arms  at  the  finish, 
is  a  bad  play,  an  insincere  and  false  play,  and  no 
amount  of  talk  and  excuses  can  make  it  anything 
else.  Imagine  Shakespeare  calling  in  the  family 
doctor  to  save  Hamlet  and  resuscitate  Ophelia! 
Imagine  Ibsen  bringing  Nora  back  from  the  front 
door  in  "The  Doll's  House,"  and  casting  her  into 
Helmer's  arms! 

Naturally,  an  audience  wants  to  see  characters 
in  whom  it  has  become  interested,  happy.  But  if, 
to  make  them  happy,  truth  to  human  nature  has  to 
be  sacrificed,  then  they  cannot  be  happy  and  the 
play  remain  a  good  one. 

But  it  is  not  alone  that  you  critics  condemn  the 
happy  ending,  the  reader  may  object.  You  seem 
to  prefer  the  solemn,  serious,  gloomy  dramas,  as  a 
class,  to  those  which  are  light  and  merry.  There's 
a  reason  for  this  seeming  preference,  dear  reader. 
The  critic  does  not  really  prefer  such  dramas  as  a 
class,  but  such  dramas  are,  as  a  class,  more  often 
good  than  the  other  kind;  they  are  more  often  truth- 
ful, sincere  and  logical.  That  is  partly  because  the 
playwrights  who  write  not  to  express  themselves 
but  to  catch  the  public  pennies  usually  write  come- 
dies or  machine-made  romances,  while  the  more 
serious  plays  are  written  by  the  more  serious  play- 


WHAT  IS  A  GOOD  PLAY?          305 

wrights.  It  is  partly  because  it  is  almost  always 
easier  to  make  bad  people  effective  in  fiction  than 
good — a  well  known  fact.  But  it  is  chiefly  because' 
most  writers,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  us,  are 
more  deeply  stirred  by  the  wrongs  and  sufferings  of 
the  world  than  by  its  joys.  We  don't,  as  a  rule, 
rise  up  and  shout  because  our  neighbor  is  getting 
along  happily  with  his  wife.  If  he  is  beating  her, 
however,  we  are  very  likely  to  act.  It  is  so  with 
the  earnest  dramatist.  Joy,  to  be  sure,  with  some 
is  a  passion,  and  comedy  a  gift.  J.  M.  Barrie  is 
one  of  them.  Nothing  could  be  truer  than  Barrie's 
fantasy,  and  "The  Admirable  Crichton"  is  one  of 
the  finest  and  most  significant  plays  yet  written  in 
English  in  the  twentieth  century.  Nevertheless, 
the  fact  remains  that  those  dramatists  who  write 
because  they  really  have  something  to  say,  more 
often  than  not  feel  impelled  to  talk  about  the 
wrongs  of  the  world  rather  than  its  farces. 

Now  the  serious  critic,  too,  hopes  that  he  has  some- 
thing to  say.  He  wants  to  have  something  to  say, 
at  any  rate.  When  he  sees  such  a  play  as  "Officer 
666"  or  "Seven  Days,"  what  can  he  say,  save  that 
it  is  an  hilarious  farce — go,  and  laugh,  and  be 
happy,  and  God  bless  you?  But  when  he  sees 
Galsworthy's  "The  Pigeon,"  or  Thomas's  "As  a 


306  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Man  Thinks,"  or  Gorky's  "Night  Refuge,"  or 
Pinero's  ''Mid-Channel,"  he  is  confronted  with  a 
serious  man's  opinions  on  life  and  conduct,  and  his 
own  opinions  rush  into  accord  or  conflict,  and  what 
he  has  to  say  is  limited  only  by  the  space  he  has 
to  say  it  in.  He  personally  likes  these  plays  be- 
cause they  give  him  intellectual  stimulus  and  emo- 
tional glow.  And  he  believes  they  are  far  better 
plays  than  the  other  kind,  because  they  are  bound 
to  give  any  intelligent  spectator  the  same  reaction. 
If  he  can  get  these  reactions  from  a  comedy  (as 
from  "The  School  for  Scandal"  or  Shaw's  "Arms 
and  the  Man"  or  Barrie's  "Admirable  Crichton"), 
the  critic  is  as  glad  as  you  are.  But  he  cannot  often 
get  them  from  the  comedies  of  commerce,  and  that 
is  chiefly  why  he  seems  to  prefer  the  others. 

Mary  Shaw  once  played  Ibsen's  "Ghosts"  in 
Cripple  Creek,  and  after  the  performance  she  heard 
a  rough  miner  say  to  his  companion,  "Say,  Bill,  that 
play  made  a  feller  use  his  cocoanut!" 

The  play  that  makes  a  critic  use  his  cocoanut, 
he  believes,  is  a  better  play  than  one  which  doesn't. 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  AND  THE 
NEW  ART  OF  THE  THEATER 


William  Shakespeare,  when  he  wrote  his  plays, 
did  not  have  to  worry  about  scenery,  and  because 
with  the  stroke  of  a  pen  he  could  create  a  forest 
of  Arden  or  shift  from  Juliet's  garden  to  the  Friar's 
cell,  he  has  been  the  plague  of  scene-painters  and 
producers  ever  since  scenery  was  invented.  It  is 
only  in  our  generation  that  the  art  of  stage-scenery 
has  begun  to  be  able  to  meet  the  exacting  demands 
of  Shakespearean  drama  not  only  mechanically,  but 
poetically.  Beginning  with  the  visions  of  Gordon 
Craig  and  the  practical  productions  by  the  German 
stage  managers,  like  Max  Reinhardt,  a  development 
has  been  going  on  in  the  theater  which  amounts 
almost  to  a  revolution,  and  of  which  examples  have 
at  last  reached  America  not  alone  in  the  imported 
pantomime,  "Sumurun,"  rather  a  bizarre  example, 
but  in  the  productions  being  shown  this  winter  by 
Margaret  Anglin,  to  a  lesser  extent  in  those  made 

307 


3o8  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

by  Mr.  Faversham,  in  Mr.  Ames'  Little  Theater, 
in  the  Boston  Opera-House,  and  elsewhere. 

In  a  Lowell  Institute  lecture  last  winter,  Profes- 
sor George  P.  Baker  predicted  that  in  ten  years  the 
old-fashioned,  "realistic"  scenery  (which,  after  all, 
seldom  is  realistic)  would  be  quite  obsolete  save 
only  in  realistic  plays  with  interior  settings.  If 
that  is  the  case,  the  so-called  "new  scenery"  is  one 
of  the  most  important  developments  in  the  whole 
history  of  the  drama,  and  demands  our  attention. 
The  present  writer  believes  with  Mr.  Baker  that  it 
is  the  case;  and  he  believes  furthermore  that  we 
are  on  the  eve  of  a  renaissance  of  theatrical  art, — 
the  art  of  the  whole  theater,  that  is  to  say, — not 
merely  of  the  writing  of  plays,  but  of  their  pro- 
duction. 

In  a  word,  the  new  scenery  is  pictorial.  The 
reader  will  perhaps  exclaim  at  once  that  so  was  the 
old  scenery.  But  in  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred 
cases  that  is  just  what  it  wasn't,  and  isn't.  It  was 
a  more  or  less  crude  attempt  at  a  reproduction  of 
place, — which,  to  be  sure,  is  the  first  duty  of  scenery, 
— but  it  was,  and  is,  generally  a  mechanical  repro- 
duction, without  pictorial  quality  and  the  higher 
forms  of  illusion.  At  how  many  stage-settings 
would  you  care  to  look  for  five  minutes,  with  no 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  309 

play  going  on,  regarding  them  purely  as  picture*? 
How  many  have  you  ever  beheld  which,  quite  on 
their  own  merits,  gave  you  the  same  mood  of  illusion 
as  the  drama  itself?  How  many  productions  of 
Shakespeare  have  you  ever  witnessed  in  which  the 
scenery  was  not  a  caricature  on  the  verse,  and  the 
"waits"  while  the  caricatures  were  being  shifted 
so  long  that  half  the  text  had  to  be  omitted?  How 
many  perspectives  of  distance  have  you  ever  seen 
on  the  stage  which  did  not  end  palpably  twenty 
feet  to  the  rear  in  a  painted  back-drop?  In  short, 
how  many  stage-settings  have  you  seen  which  were 
independent  art? 

The  new  scenery  can  be  independent  art,  that  is, 
a  pictorial  and  plastic  expression  worthy  of  com- 
panioning the  highest  flights  of  dramatic  literature; 
and  because  this  is  so,  the  stage  productions  of  the 
future  more  than  ever  in  the  past  will  contain  ele- 
ments of  illusion  beyond  the  range  of  mere  liter- 
ature, and  the  author's  talent  will  more  than  ever 
be  an  incomplete  equipment  for  the  true  man  of  the 
theater. 

In  the  earlier  periods  of  literary  creation  the 
drama  always  occupied  a  high  and  often  a  supreme 
place  both  in  literary  dignity  and  popular  regard. 
We  have  merely  to  glance  at  the  Greece  of  Sopho- 


310  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

cles,  the  England  of  Shakespeare,  the  France  of  Mo- 
liere  and  Racine,  to  realize  this.  So  strongly  did 
the  traditional  literary  importance  of  drama  per- 
sist that  the  eighteenth  century  found  Addison  writ- 
ing "Cato"  and  Garrick  besieged  with  manuscript 
plays  from  writers  great  and  small,  fitted  and  un- 
fitted for  the  calling.  It  was  the  sudden  expansion 
of  the  novel  form  in  the  nineteenth  century  which 
more  than  anything  else  put  the  drama  back  in  our 
day  into  a  place  of  secondary  importance  in  liter- 
ary, if  not  in  popular,  regard — a  place  that  for  the 
most  part,  we  are  forced  to  admit  from  the  examples 
produced,  was  its  proper  one. 

In  the  age  of  Shakespeare,  of  Dryden,  even  of 
Fielding,  probably  Scott,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  and 
a  host  of  lesser  novelists  would  have  striven  to  write 
for  the  stage;  nor  is  there  much  reason  to  doubt  that 
many  of  them  could  have  learned  to  write  for  the 
stage  successfully.  But  the  novel  having  opened 
up  a  new  channel  of  expression,  in  many  ways  an 
easier  channel  of  expression,  and  certainly  a  fuller 
channel  for  the  conveyance  of  all  kinds  of  philo- 
sophic ideas,  "criticism  of  life,"  and  so  on,  won 
their  allegiance  instead.  Moreover,  the  novel  was 
suddenly  realistic — suddenly,  as  the  gods  reckon 
time.  When  we  reflect  that  Goldsmith's  "She 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  311 

Stoops  to  Conquer"  was  considered  realistic;  when 
we  read  the  strange  melodramas  of  Kotzebue,  which 
held  the  boards  in  the  day  of  Scott;  when  we  scan 
the  playbills  of  any  theater  during  the  early  years 
of  Thackeray  and  Dickens,  we  can  readily  see  why 
writers  of  talent  turned  away  from  the  drama  to 
the  new,  vastly  fresher,  and  seemingly  unlimited 
form  of  expression — the  novel.  Thereafter  the 
drama  steadily  sank  from  its  ancient  post  of  liter- 
ary honor,  particularly  in  England,  till  it  had  to 
offer,  against  the  novels  of  George  Eliot  and  Thack- 
eray, the  farces  of  Morton  or  at  best  the  "tea-cup 
comedies"  of  Tom  Robertson,  and  in  America  Au- 
gustin  Daly's  "Under  the  Gas  Lamps"  against  "The 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham."  Small  wonder  the  drama 
was  scorned  by  men  of  letters. 

The  contemporary  drama  was  reborn  in  the  North 
of  a  literarily  new  nation,  and  its  father  was  Hen- 
rik  Ibsen.  It  is  not  true,  of  course,  that  Ibsen 
worked  alone,  that  no  other  stage  writers  in  other 
lands  preceded  him  or  were  contemporaneous  with 
him  in  the  movement  to  put  the  stage  on  a  new  foot- 
ing. Dumas  fits  and  Augier  certainly  did  their  share, 
and  stirrings  of  the  new  spirit  were  abroad  in  Ger- 
many. Realistic  fiction  was  not  without  its  influ- 
ence, also.  Nevertheless,  Ibsen  was  the  greatest 


312  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

single  factor,  in  part  from  the  self-imposed  isolation 
in  which  he  labored.  In  this  connection  it  is  not 
necessary  to  hold  a  brief  either  for  or  against  his 
own  plays.  Probably  the  truth  about  their  merit 
lies  between  the  extremes  of  Shavian  admiration 
and  Winterish  detraction.  Much  of  their  atmos- 
phere, certainly,  is  local  rather  than  universal,  and 
as  they  recede  their  interest  appears  to  grow  less. 
But  of  their  technical  importance  there  can  be  no 
question.  You  have  only  to  see  a  revival  of  a  suc- 
cessful play  of  one  generation  ago — "Liberty  Hall," 
for  example,  produced  at  the  Empire  Theater,  New 
York,  in  1892,  and  revived  in  March,  1913, — to 
realize  what  a  tremendous  revolution  was  wrought 
by  the  simple  overthrow  of  certain  conventions  of 
play-writing,  such  as  the  aside  and  the  soliloquy, 
and  the  development  of  a  technique  which  could  re- 
move the  fourth  wall  of  the  room  and  show  us 
reality.  As  soon  as  the  dramatists  of  the  Western 
World  found  that  they  could  put  real  life,  not  stage 
life,  before  their  audiences,  and  began  to  do  so, 
what  was  bound  to  happen  did  happen — the  men 
who  knew  most  accurately  and  felt  most  deeply 
about  real  life  were  acclaimed  the  best  dramatists. 
One  did  not  need  to  be  a  Sardou  to  be  successful. 
To  be  successful  in  the  higher  courts  of  taste,  indeed, 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  313 

one  needed  not  to  be  a  Sardou.  In  short,  reality 
succeeded  trickery.  The  drama  once  more  could 
offer  to  men  of  letters  a  worthy  reward,  because  it 
could  offer  them  at  last  a  technique  by  which  they 
could  express  their  criticisms,  their  philosophies, 
their  beliefs  about  life,  no  less  effectively — though 
not  so  easily,  because  vastly  more  selective  conden- 
sation is  required — than  by  the  novel. 

That  is  where  the  drama  stands  to-day  so  far  as 
it  is  a  matter  of  spoken  text,  and  writers  of  the  first 
rank  are  returning  to  it,  as  they  always  will  return 
when  conditions  are  favorable,  not  only  because  of 
its  rich  financial  rewards,  but  because  of  its  glamour, 
its  excitement,  its  superb  directness  and  vividness. 
J.  M.  Barrie  has  forsaken  the  novel  altogether. 
G.  B.  Shaw  is  certainly  as  widely  read  and  as  influ- 
ential a  man  of  letters  as  now  writes  in  English. 
Galsworthy  has  had  six  plays  produced  in  the  last 
seven  years.  John  Masefield,  one  of  the  leading 
English  poets  of  the  time,  is  a  dramatic  author. 
Sudermann  and  Hauptmann  in  Germany  are  essen- 
tially dramatic  authors.  The  new  Celtic  revival 
is  a  dramatic  revival,  and  Synge  is  its  genius.  The 
real  literary  life  of  a  city  like  Manchester,  England, 
centers  about  Miss  Horniman's  playhouse.  Within 
the  last  ten  years,  in  more  than  one  of  our  American 


3H  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

universities,  the  undergraduate  interest  in  literature 
has  shifted  largely  from  the  essay  and  fiction  to  the 
drama.  This  is  notably  true  of  Harvard.  There 
is  not  to-day,  and  there  never  has  been,  a  spon- 
taneous movement  among  the  men  and  women  who 
make  up  the  audiences  for  any  form  of  art  to  com- 
pare in  extent  or  seriousness  of  interest  with  the 
Drama  League  of  America,  which  now  counts  over 
fifty  thousand  members  devoted  to  a  study  of  the 
playhouse.  By  every  token,  the  drama  has  entered 
upon  a  new  era  of  respectability,  and  is  once  more 
held  in  high  regard  by  men  of  letters,  and  deserves 
that  regard.  Mr.  Galsworthy's  "Strife"  is  no  less 
important  as  literature  than  his  "Patrician";  Eu- 
gene Walter's  "The  Easiest  Way"  is  no  less  genuine 
a  document  than  the  stories  of  Mrs.  Deland. 

We  might,  then,  suppose  from  a  casual  glance 
that  the  theater  has  returned  to  its  ancient  condition 
in  its  relation  to  men  of  letters,  that  the  play  which 
would  "bear  the  test  of  print"  and  justify  itself  as 
literature  to  the  reader  as  well  as  to  the  spectator 
was  once  more  the  final  test.  We  might  suppose, 
in  short,  that  the  man  of  letters  and  the  man  of  the 
theater  are  once  more  interchangeable.  Let  us  see 
if  that  is  the  case. 

The  poet  who  wrote  for  the  theater  of  Athens 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  315 

wrote  for  a  static  stage,  for  actors  who  wore  con- 
ventional masks,  for  a  perfectly  definite  and  fixed 
condition  of  presentation.  The  poet  who  wrote  for 
the  Elizabethan  theater  likewise  wrote  for  a  static, 
or  very  nearly  static,  stage,  and  once  more  the  effects 
achieved  were  only  such  as  lay  in  the  power  of  his 
words  or  situations  to  convey.  Even  after  the  ap- 
plication of  scenery  to  the  stage  and  the  withdrawal 
of  the  actors  behind  a  proscenium-arch,  so  that  the 
stage  was  no  longer  static,  but  potentially  pictorial 
and  plastic,  the  author  still  prevailed  over  the  "pro- 
duction," and  continued  to  prevail,  of  course  with 
the  actor's  aid,  until  recent  years.  But  the  perfec- 
tion of  electric  illumination,  the  invention  of  the 
revolving-stage,  the  introduction  of  "relief"  scenery, 
the  application  by  a  hundred  and  one  technical 
methods  of  impressionism  to  the  art  of  scenery  and 
production,  have  suddenly  put  so  powerful  a  weapon 
into  the  hand  of  the  producer  of  the  play  that  he 
has  become  frequently  as  important  as  the  author, 
and  not  infrequently  much  more  important.  His 
imagination,  his  creative  powers,  if  they  chance  to 
be  greater  than  the  author's,  will  produce  an  effect 
more  potent  over  the  audience  than  the  text  of  the 
drama.  Hence  it  is  that  we  find  such  a  man  as 
Gordon  Craig,  who  is  essentially  an  artist  in  moods 


316  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

and  scenery,  not  a  man  of  letters,  talking  about  a 
new  art  of  the  theatre — of  the  theatre,  mind  you, 
not  of  drama — and  by  his  influence  and  the  influ- 
ence of  imitators  in  Germany,  such  as  Max  Rein- 
hardt,  working  at  a  revolution  in  the  playhouse,  a 
revolution  extending  even  to  the  physical  construc- 
tion of  the  building.  These  revolutionists  are  not 
dramatists,  they  are  not  men  of  letters ;  they  are  pro- 
ducers, stage-managers,  in  short,  strictly  men  of  the 
theatre.  However,  if  we  have  yet  scarcely  begun 
to  realize  it  in  America,  they  are  shaping  the  play- 
house and  the  drama  of  the  future,  and  conditioning 
the  dramatist.  No  sooner,  then,  do  we  seem  to  have 
spanned  once  more  the  gap  between  the  man  of  let- 
ters and  the  stage,  between  literature  and  acted 
drama,  than  we  find  a  Gordon  Craig  busily  hacking 
down  our  bridge! 

The  new  art  of  the  theatre  is  based  primarily  on 
the  electric  switchboard.  It  recognizes  that  great 
stretches  of  painted  canvas  in  a  bright  glare  can 
never  be  illusive  in  any  high  sense,  that  they  are 
bound  to  be  the  colored  blocks  of  overgrown  chil- 
dren; and  so,  first  of  all,  it  gets  its  colors  not  from 
the  canvas,  but  from  the  lamps,  and  makes  its  per- 
spectives with  shadows  rather  than  with  drawn  lines. 
Secondly,  it  is  usually  an  art  of  elimination  down  to 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  317 

the  salient  features  of  a  given  scene  which  shall  most 
effectively  comport  with  the  mood  of  the  play,  and 
which  can  be  combined  into  a  true  picture.  It  is 
impressionistic.  It  is  to  the  old  art  what  modern 
landscape-painting  is  to  the  mid- Victorian  chromo. 
When  it  does  not  eliminate,  when  it  employs  the  old 
methods  of  building  "realistic"  houses  all  over  the 
stage,  for  instance,  it  does  so  in  patches  of  color  or 
with  a  pictorial  rhythm  of  design  that  converts  the 
ancient  chaos  into  a  new  charm.  Such  is  often  Mr. 
Urban's  method  at  the  Boston  Opera-House. 

Take,  for  an  example  of  simplification,  Living- 
ston Platt's  settings  for  Miss  Anglin's  Shakespearean 
repertoire.  They  are  painted  almost  entirely  in  a 
stipple  of  primary  colors,  which  would  tell  virtually 
as  gray  in  white  light.  Color  is  secured  by  the  illu- 
mination, which  is  from  above,  not  up  from  the  foot- 
lights. Each  Shakespearean  play  has  a  special  per- 
manent fore-stage  set  up,  with  entrances  on  each 
side,  which  is  designed  to  harmonize  with  the  drama. 
On  this  fore-stage  are  acted  all  the  intermediate 
scenes,  while  the  main  scenes  are  being  shifted  be- 
hind. These  main  scenes  are  simple.  The  palace, 
for  example,  in  "Twelfth  Night,"  shows  only  three 
graceful  arched  windows  and  through  them  the 
deep  blue  sky,  while  there  are  only  two  pieces  of  fur- 


318  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

niture  in  the  room.  Yet  the  picture  amply  satisfies 
the  imagination,  and  fills  the  eye  with  pleasure,  be- 
cause Mr.  Platt  is  an  artist.  Moreover,  every 
change  can  be  made  without  a  moment's  wait,  and 
the  entire  text  of  the  drama  played  as  quickly  as 
on  a  bare  stage.  Here  at  last  the  scene-setting  can 
match  the  magic  and  the  speed  of  Shakespeare's 
verse. 

In  "Sumurun,"  staged  by  Max  Reinhardt,  we 
saw  how  the  new  art  can  get  striking  effects  by  dar- 
ing to  group  the  players  in  high  relief  against  a  jet- 
black  velvet  curtain, — mimes  against  primeval  dark-> 
ness ! — and  letting  the  very  rhythm  of  their  shifting 
poses  conspire  to  the  emotional  effect.  Again  in 
"Sumurun"  we  saw  how  "relief  scenery,"  which  is 
simply  a  curtain  painted  in  the  flat,  without  any  at- 
tempt at  the  third  dimension,  can,  if  it  is  designed  by 
a  real  artist,  be  more  potent  than  a  whole  littered 
stage  of  "solid"  houses  in  perspective.  Gordon 
Craig  staged  "Hamlet"  in  Moscow  amid  a  maze  of 
gigantic  towering  screens — nothing  else — shifted  in 
various  designs,  and  the  effect,  while  undoubtedly 
too  bizarre  for  present  American  taste,  was  said  to 
be  wonderful.  Less  of  a  break  from  tradition  was 
the  Russian  scenery  for  "Boris,"  shown  at  the  Metro- 
politan Opera  House  last  Winter,  where  a  lofty  wall 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  319 

of  white  went  up,  up,  out  of  sight,  and  against  it 
huddled  a  group  of  players  in  reds  and  browns, 
imaginatively  dwarfed  till  the  white  walls  were  in- 
deed those  of  a  mighty  building.  Even  Belasco, 
arch-realist  though  he  is,  has  felt  the  new  possibili- 
ties, and  in  "A  Good  Little  Devil,"  by  a  complete 
dimming  of  his  lights  in  the  first  act,  was  able  to 
open  the  wall  of  the  boy's  chamber  to  show  the  star- 
gemmed  night  sky,  and  then  the  angels  floating  in 
and  standing  about  the  bed  in  a  faint  golden  radi- 
ance, like  a  moonlit  fresco  by  Fra  Angelico.  That 
picture,  indeed,  was  worth  all  the  text  of  the  play. 
It  had  far  more  of  illusive  art  about  it.  It,  and  not 
the  spoken  dialogue,  was  stage  "literature."  And  it 
was  made  possible,  of  course,  by  the  modern  electric 
switchboard.  Electricity  marks  a  new  element  in 
theatric  art  which  was  totally  unknown  in  the  past. 
The  new  art  is  based  not  on  the  fact  that  electricity 
has  increased  the  reality  of  stage-settings,  but  on  the 
fact  that  it  has  vastly  increased  the  possibilities  of 
suggestion:  it  veils  reality  in  the  nimbus  of  mystery. 
It  has  brought  to  the  aid  of  illusion  the  army  of 
shadows. 

Now,  the  effect  on  an  audience  of  such  stage-set- 
tings as  these  is  something  apart  from  the  text  of 
the  drama,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  not  supplied  by  the 


320  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

dramatist,  but  by  the  producer;  not  by  the  words, 
the  literary  feature  of  the  play,  but  by  the  arts  of 
the  painter  and  the  electrician.  Naturally,  a  good 
producer  strives  always  to  produce  an  effect  which 
is  in  keeping  with  the  text  and  spirit  of  the  play. 
Indeed,  the  fact  that  Max  Reinhardt  has  no  fixed 
method  of  production  is  only  a  testimony  to  his  ex- 
cellence as  a  stage-manager.  He  tries,  if  not  al- 
ways with  success,  to  catch  the  essential  mood,  the 
atmosphere,  the  emotional  motif,  call  it  what  you 
will,  of  the  drama,  in  his  impressionistic  settings. 
Even  Gordon  Craig,  who  staged  "Hamlet"  with 
towering  screens,  would  not  dream  of  so  staging 
"The  Easiest  Way,"  which  is  not  metaphysical, 
poetic,  remote.  It  is  worth  noting,  however,  that 
Mr.  Craig  has  recently  published  a  design  for  Ibsen's 
"Rosmersholm"  which  is  almost  pure  suggestion — 
suggestive,  some  might  say,  of  a  rat-trap.  The  fact 
remains  that  now,  as  never  before  in  the  history  of 
the  playhouse,  the  producer  is  a  man  of  potentially 
as  much  importance  as  the  dramatist,  and  the  effects 
he  achieves  with  canvas  and  switchboard  can  be  as 
potent  a  part  of  our  pleasure,  even  of  our  emotional 
enkindling,  as  the  spoken  words  of  the  play.  We 
feel  that  the  "production,"  in  short,  is  a  part  of  the 
genuine  art  of  the  drama.  We  have  long  talked  of 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  321 

the  drama  as  combining  all  the  arts,  literature,  paint- 
ing, sculpture,  music ;  but  beside  the  new  scenery  and 
the  new  grouping  of  players  in  relief,  the  old  scenery 
and  the  old  grouping  had  rather  less  of  suggestive 
art  about  them  than  the  Victorian  chromo.  What 
we  have  long  said  was  true  is  only  now  becoming 
so.  And  as  it  more  and  more  becomes  so,  the  drama- 
tist who  is  merely  a  man  of  letters  becomes  less  and 
less  effectual  in  the  theatre. 

He  becomes  less  and  less  effectual  because  more 
and  more  of  the  final  effect  of  his  work  will  not  be 
his  own  planning,  but  somebody  else's,  and  because 
that  unity  of  impression  which  must  be  the  great 
test  of  a  genuine  work  of  art  will  more  and  more 
depend  on  the  chance  unity  of  temperament  between 
author  and  producer.  The  more  potent  the  pictorial 
side  of  drama  becomes,  the  more  important  it  be- 
comes that  the  author  shall  possess  a  pictorial  mind, 
that  the  emotional  and  philosophic  content  of  his 
work  shall  be  capable  of  fusion  with  the  most  sug- 
gestive of  settings.  This  implies  more  than  a  mere 
understanding  of  what  is  mechanically  possible  in 
the  theatre.  Successful  writers  for  the  stage  have 
always  possessed  that  understanding,  which  is  a  part 
of  the  general  understanding  of  dramatic  construc- 
tion. Men  of  letters  who  have  not  taken  the  trouble 


322  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

to  achieve  this  general  understanding  have  always 
failed  in  the  theatre,  as  Browning  failed.  But  in 
the  new  theatre  not  only  an  understanding  of  what 
is  mechanically  possible,  but  the  ability  to  conceive 
and  suggest  the  scenic  designs,  if  not  actually  to  put 
them  on  paper,  will  be  required  of  those  dramatists 
who  are  to  be  most  eminent  beyond  the  narrow 
bounds  of  contemporary  realism.  Contemporary 
realism,  which  has  had  its  way  with  our  literature  of 
late,  and  probably  to  our  good,  will  nevertheless  not 
long  endure  as  the  only  or  the  highest  form  of  art. 
Already  the  theatre  is  swinging  from  it.  But  when 
fancy  is  turned  loose  in  the  theatre  of  the  future — 
of  the  immediate  future — when  poetry  riots,  and  ro- 
mance, no  longer  are  the  writer's  line  and  the  actor's 
voice  the  only  elements  of  suggestion  which  count 
supremely  in  the  effect,  and  no  longer  can  the  judg- 
ment of  the  printed  page  be  invoked  as  the  final  judg- 
ment. So  fused  with  the  text  will  be  the  scenery, 
the  pictorial  element,  so  much  a  vital,  integral  part 
of  the  play  will  be  the  painting  and  the  lighting, 
even  the  rhythm  of  the  groupings,  perhaps,  that  the 
printed  text  will  not  be  the  play  at  all.  The  pro- 
ducer will  be  half-author.  The  man  of  letters  will 
be  helpless  without  the  man  of  the  theatre. 

That  of  course,  is  why  these  men  of  the  new  the- 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  323 

atre  are  so  impatient  or  even  scornful  of  academic 
judgments,  the  traditional  tests  of  literature.  They 
know  that  they,  too,  are  artists,  and  they  rightly  de- 
mand tests  of  their  art  which  are  proper  to  it,  not 
tests  devised  for  a  wholly  different  form.  And  that 
is  why  the  man  of  letters  in  the  new  theatre  will  be 
an  incomplete,  if  not  sometimes  a  futile,  worker,  un- 
less he,  too,  abandons  the  ancient  tradition  of  the 
printed  text  as  a  final  test  of  dramatic  literature,  and 
makes  the  test  of  theatrical  performance,  which  de- 
mands a  new  judgment  in  the  fusion  of  intellectual, 
emotional,  plastic,  and  pictorial  suggestion.  We 
are  to  judge  a  play  now  by  its  capacities  under  ade- 
quate production,  and  as  adequate  production  im- 
plies elements  of  art  quite  foreign  to  printed  litera- 
ture, dramatic  literature  now  steps  beyond  the  an- 
cient test,  and  perhaps  should  drop  the  term  litera- 
ture altogether,  as  making  for  confusion. 

And  what  shall  be  the  relation  of  the  man  of  let- 
ters to  the  new  theatre?  It  is  quite  inconceivable 
that  we  shall  ever  follow  Gordon  Craig  to  the  limits 
of  his  theory  that  the  drama  should  give  up  all  at- 
tempts at  reality,  even  throwing  over  human  actors, 
and  abandon  itself  to  a  puppet  dance  amid  expressive 
scenery.  That  way  madness  lies.  The  modern 
drama  of  contemporary  life  has  come  to  stay,  though 


324  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

in  a  few  years  we  shall  demand  something  less  than 
one  third  of  the  furniture  which  now  clutters  our 
stage  rooms.  The  vocal  side  of  dramatic  art,  carry- 
ing to  audiences  by  the  common  medium  of  human 
intercourse  the  intellectual  ideas  of  the  dramatist, 
the  sense  of  reality,  the  revelation  of  character,  will 
of  course  always  abide,  whether  in  contemporary 
realism  or  the  highest  flights  of  poetic  fancy.  The 
new  art  of  the  theatre  will  be  an  evolution — not, 
after  all,  a  revolution.  It  will  add  to  the  firm  basis 
of  literary  solidity  the  fresh  element  of  pictorial 
appeal,  fusing  the  two  into  one  structure,  not,  as  of 
old,  employing  pictorial  appeal  merely  as  a  conven- 
tional sign-post  of  place.  That  is  all  our  present- 
day  "realistic"  scenery  does.  It  is  a  sign-board  of 
place.  It  has  no  emotional  quality  of  its  own;  it 
cannot  be  called  a  branch  of  art.  It  is  not  really 
essential  to  the  mood  and  effect  of  the  drama.  But 
in  the  new  theatre  the  "production,"  the  elements  of 
scenery,  lighting,  grouping,  the  colors  of  the  back- 
drops and  costumes,  the  very  design  of  the  settings, 
are  conscious  art  works  in  themselves;  and  when 
once  the  dramatist  can  rely  upon  them,  he  has 
achieved  a  whole  new  range  of  materials  to  work 
with  besides  words  and  the  intellectual  ideas  words 
express.  That  is  the  point.  The  man  of  letters 


THE  MAN  OF  LETTERS  325 

works  with  words,  but  the  new  dramatist  with  scene 
cloths  and  switchboards  and  living  statues  and  even 
great  patches  of  pure  color.  If  the  man  of  letters, 
then,  is  to  express  himself  fully,  reach  a  high  devel- 
opment, in  the  new  theatre,  he  must  add  to  his  tra- 
ditional literary  equipment  the  ability  to  use  these 
new  materials  to  his  purpose,  making  them  combine 
and  fuse  into  a  great  unity  of  impression. 

In  the  new  theater,  then,  the  dramatist  must  be 
painter  and  sculptor  of  words,  ideas,  emotions,  no 
less  than  writer.  The  old  interchangeableness  be- 
tween dramatist  and  man  of  letters  is  gone.  The 
great  dramatists  must  still  be  born  men  of  letters, 
but  they  must  be  something  else  besides:  they  must 
be  artists  of  the  theatre,  aware  that  the  theatre  is 
not  the  printed  page,  rather  proud,  perhaps,  that  it  is 
not,  and  impatient  of  any  judgment  which  is  not 
formed  from  a  seat  in  the  auditorium. 


WHAT  IS  ENTERTAINMENT? 

1914 

How  often  we  have  heard  somebody  say,  "Well, 
after  all,  I  go  to  the  theatre  to  be  entertained !"  It 
is  but  another  statement  of  Barrett  Wendell's  sar- 
castic definition  of  the  duty  of  the  American  theatre 
— "To  send  the  suburbs  home  happy."  But  how 
many  of  those  who  make,  or  those  who  listen  to,  this 
remark,  have  ever  stopped  to  think  just  what  enter- 
tainment means? 

Not  only  are  we  prone  to  forget  that  entertainment 
is  a  thing  entirely  relative  to  the  age  and  neighbor- 
hood, but  that  it  is  still  further  relative  to  the  indi- 
vidual, and  when  we  say  that  we  go  to  the  theatre 
to  be  entertained  we  have  no  right  to  mean  anything 
more  than  that.  But  we  always  do  mean  more  than 
that.  We  always  mean  that  we  want  a  play  which 
will  amuse  us  or  pleasantly  affect  our  emotions,  with- 
out tiring  the  attention,  without  bringing  up  issues 
which  will  have  to  be  carried  away  for  digestion  out- 
side of  the  theatre,  without,  in  short,  in  any  way  dis- 

326 


WHAT  IS  ENTERTAINMENT?      327 

turbing  the  even  flow  of  our  daily  lives  and  the  estab- 
lished order  of  our  ideas ;  and,  in  addition,  we  refuse 
to  admit  other  people's  standards  of  entertainment. 
Now,  that  isn't  fair.  Of  course  everybody  goes  to 
the  theatre  to  be  entertained.  Art  exists  for  no 
other  purpose  than  to  entertain — to  occupy  the 
mind,  to  add  a  super-meaning  and  grace  and  charm 
to  life.  Art  is  a  measure  of  the  richness  and  happi- 
ness of  a  civilization.  But  entertainment  and 
amusement  are  not  the  same  thing,  and  so  this  popu- 
lar (and  wholly  correct)  belief  that  the  theatre  exists 
to  entertain  has  been  converted  into  an  evil  influence 
by  the  confusion  of  the  two  terms. 

Indeed,  even  amusement  is  a  relative  term.  As 
Gilbert  said,  it  may  be  funny  to  sit  down  in  a  pork 
pie,  but  you  don't  have  to  sit  down  in  a  pork  pie  to 
be  funny.  Some  people  laugh  at  the  pork  pie  school 
of  comedians — others  prefer  Gilbert.  But  enter- 
tainment is  a  much  broader  term  than  amusement, 
embracing  all  the  various  appeals  of  the  allied  arts 
of  the  theatre,  and  unless  our  theatre  is  broad  enough 
to  meet  the  various  demands  of  various  people,  it  is 
but  partially  fulfilling  its  function.  Let  us  look 
more  carefully  at  some  of  these  possible  demands,  let 
us  try  to  see  if  entertainment  cannot  be  found  in 
quarters  unsuspected,  let  us  try  to  see  if  the  stan- 


328  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

dard  of  what  is  entertaining  is  not,  even  for  the  indi- 
vidual, a  changeable  thing,  which  can  be  raised  and 
even  altered  completely  by  a  little  effort  on  his  part. 
We  demand  of  children  that  they  alter  their  stan- 
dards in  the  process  of  education.  Why  should  all 
the  rest  of  us  cease  in  our  growth  the  day  we  leave 
school,  or  cast  our  first  vote*? 

Let  us  take  first  the  matter  of  scenery.  The  first 
function  of  scenery,  without  question,  is  to  supply 
an  illusion  of  place.  But  need  its  function  stop 
there  *?  And  are  there  not  various  degrees,  even  va- 
rious kinds  of  illusion1?  Why  should  we  not  find 
entertainment,  then,  in  watching  scenic  experiments 
in  the  theater,  and  so  give  encouragement  to  the  ex- 
perimenters'? Our  stage  has  made  practically  no 
progress  on  the  mechanical  side,  while  the  stages  of 
Europe  have  been  hotbeds  of  experiment,  calling 
forth  the  best  talents  of  architects  and  painters. 
That  is  solely  because  we,  the  American  public,  can- 
not see  "entertainment"  in  anything  different  from 
the  comfortable  routine  to  which  we  are  accustomed. 

When  a  scene  is  set  up  for  an  hour  before  our 
eyes,  is  there  any  sensible  reason  why  it  should  not, 
in  addition  to  creating  the  proper  illusion  of  place, 
also  give  us  pure  aesthetic  pleasure  on  its  own  ac- 
count? Indeed,  there  is  every  reason  why  it  should. 


WHAT  IS  ENTERTAINMENT?      329 

If  you  buy  even  knives  and  forks  and  plates  to  eat 
with,  you  strive  also  to  buy  attractive  ones,  decora- 
tive ones.  Why,  then,  should  not  a  stage  picture 
compose  into  harmonies  of  color  and  design,  why 
should  it  not  please  the  eye?  Let  us  keep  watch  on 
the  stage  pictures  we  see,  let  us  give  encouragement 
to  the  producers  who  have  the  courage  to  throw  about 
half  the  furniture  now  used  into  the  cellar  and  to 
substitute  for  the  present  restless  and  meaningless 
crisscrossings  and  wanderings  about  of  the  players 
significant  and  attractive  groupings.  Let  us  encour- 
age, as  well,  those  producers  who,  in  plays  which 
permit  of  a  romantic  or  poetic  treatment,  dare  to  get 
away  from  the  conventional  pasteboard  and  give  us 
decorations  of  line  and  color.  Let  us,  in  short,  find 
entertainment  in  the  scene-painter's  and  decorator's 
art. 

Another  phase  of  the  drama  in  which  the  general 
mass  of  theater-goers  fail  to  find  entertainment,  very 
largely  because  it  has  never  occurred  to  them  to  look 
for  it  there,  is  the  dialogue  of  the  play — that  is,  the 
literary  charm  of  the  writing.  It  goes  without  say- 
ing that  if  a  play  is  to  endure  it  must  be  not  only 
effective  dramatically  but  it  must  be  written  with 
sufficient  literary  style  to  withstand  the  acid  test  of 
print.  However,  in  the  past,  few  plays  were  ever 


330  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

printed  (fortunately,  the  Drama  League  and  other 
influences  have  begun  to  alter  that  condition),  and 
even  to-day  few  people  stop  to  consider  whether  or 
not  a  play  has  enduring  qualities.  Its  immediate 
appeal  for  the  one  evening  when  they  have  paid 
their  money  for  seats  is  all  that  concerns  them. 

Yet  what  an  added  source  of  entertainment  firm, 
well-knit  writing  is — writing  which  possesses  style! 
You  have  only  to  contrast  the  dialogue  of  Somerset 
Maugham's  "The  Land  of  Promise"  with  that  of 
Moody' s  "The  Great  Divide"  (two  plays  of  strik- 
ingly similar  theme),  to  realize  this.  Mr.  Moody 
was  a  poet,  and  the  mere  fact  that  he  was  writing  in 
prose  did  not  prevent  him  from  writing  beautifully, 
with  passages  of  emotional  fervor  and  sudden  flights 
of  imaginative  suggestion.  Neither  did  his  people 
speak  out  of  character,  which  would  have  been  fatal 
in  such  a  play.  He  had  the  sense  for  style,  how- 
ever, and  from  the  mouth  of  his  rough  hero,  in  rough 
words,  came  shaggy  similes  which  lifted  the  hearer. 
When  Miss  Anglin  revived  "Lady  Windermere's 
Fan"  last  spring,  the  incomparably  brilliant  dia- 
logue of  Oscar  Wilde,  clean  cut  at  every  angle  like 
a  diamond,  fell  deliciously  on  the  ear.  One  of  the 
reasons  for  the  success  of  certain  plays  by  A.  E. 
Thomas— "The  Rainbow"  and  "Her  Husband's 


WHAT  IS  ENTERTAINMENT?      331 

Wife" — is  undoubtedly  the  graceful  phrasing,  life- 
like but  never  merely  the  sloppy  conversation  of  the 
ordinary  "man  in  the  street." 

We  have  carried  the  cult  of  realism  too  far  in  our 
theater,  till  our  plays  have  become,  indeed,  so  real- 
istic that  they  are  not  even  true  of  the  majority. 
Only  a  small  section  of  the  public,  in  its  most  care- 
less hours,  ever  talks  as  slangily  and  sloppily  as  the 
characters  in  a  Cohan  comedy  or  any  one  of  half  a 
hundred  recent  American  dramas  we  might  name. 
Moreover,  if  realism  means  that  we  shall  hear  no 
more  beautiful  language  on  our  stage,  no  more  care- 
ful phrasing,  no  more  poetic  figure  nor  eloquent 
period,  then  let  us  have  done  with  realism  for  good 
and  all!  Fortunately,  however,  men  and  women 
still  exist  who  can  and  do  talk  well  and  carefully 
and  eloquently.  We  should  find  entertainment  in 
seeing  them'  represented  on  the  stage,  and  in  the  skill 
of  any  playwright  who  can  achieve  by  his  style  the 
charm  of  well-knit,  virile,  beautiful  dialogue. 

But  this  matter  of  style  in  plays  goes  far  deeper 
than  the  mere  literary  quality  of  the  dialogue.  It 
goes  to  the  roots  of  the  construction  of  the  play,  and 
betrays  the  master  craftsman  (or  the  bungler)  in  a 
hundred  ways.  With  a  very  slightly  increased  at- 
tention on  our  part  we  may  find  an  added  entertain- 


332  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

ment  in  observing  good  workmanship,  which  will 
compensate  us,  perhaps,  for  the  diminished  enter- 
tainment we  shall  thereafter  find  in  poor. 

If  you  pay  ten  thousand  dollars  for  a  house  you 
demand  good  workmanship,  and  you  look  for  it  care- 
fully. Why  not  when  you  pay  two  dollars  for  a 
play*?  A  real  love  for  good  workmanship  is  as  much 
disclosed  by  the  one  demand  as  the  other.  Indeed, 
if  the  demand  does  not  exist  in  both  cases  the  real 
love  is  not  there. 

Let  us  consider  the  telephone:  the  telephone 
is  a  beneficent  invention,  and  it  has  benefited 
nobody  so  much  as  the  dramatist.  Think  how 
few  plays  of  contemporary  life  you  now  see 
without  a  telephone  on  the  stage.  Is  it  there 
to  give  a  realistic  touch?  It  is  not.  It  is  there 
to  help  the  dramatist  get  his  plot  across;  and 
a  very  potent  help  it  is.  J.  M.  Barrie  in  his  comical 
burlesque,  "A  Slice  of  Life,"  which  Ethel  Barrymore 
acted  two  or  three  winters  ago,  made  fun  of  this  use 
of  the  telephone.  Each  character,  as  he  or  she  en- 
tered, rang  somebody  up,  in  order  to  announce  his 
or  her  name  for  the  benefit  of  the  audience. 

"Is  this  you,  Father*?"  asked  Miss  Barrymore  in 
a  languid  voice.  "This  is  your  daughter,  Mrs.  Hy- 
phen-Brown— you  remember." 


WHAT  IS  ENTERTAINMENT?      333 

None  of  Mr.  Barrie's  characters,  of  course,  said 
any  more,  which  was  what  made  it  funny.  In  serious 
plays  they  hold  real  conversations,  however,  and  thus 
the  audience  can  learn  who  they  are  and  something 
about  them,  without  the  necessity  of  additional  char- 
acters for  them  to  talk  to.  The  telephone  thus  takes 
its  place  as  a  new  and  up-to-date  device  for  helping 
the  dramatist  get  his  plot  across. 

Did  you  ever  stop  to  realize  what  a  task  it  is  to 
get  a  plot  across"?  It  looks  easy,  and  the  better  it  is 
done  the  easier  it  looks.  When  it  is  done  by  a  mas- 
ter it  doesn't  seem  to  be  done  at  all.  Several  hun- 
dred thousand  would-be  dramatists  all  over  the 
United  States  think  they  can  do  it,  and  every  mana- 
ger's office  is  bombarded  with  manuscripts.  But 
any  play  reader  can  testify  from  bitter  experience 
that  in  not  more  than  one  out  of  five  hundred  of 
these  manuscripts  is  the  plot  successfully  got  across. 
What  looks  so  easy  is  perhaps  the  most  difficult  task 
that  confronts  the  craftsman  in  any  branch  of  lit- 
erature. 

Consider  for  a  moment  this  task,  in  the  very  first 
act.  The  program  tells  your  audience  where  the 
scene  is,  and  the  names  of  the  characters — and  no 
more.  The  audience  when  the  curtain  rises  does  not 
know  which  character  on  the  stage  is  John  Smith  and 


334  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

which  is  James  Brown,  it  does  not  know  anything 
about  their  past  lives,  or  their  present  condition. 
Obviously,  the  first  thing  the  author  has  to  do  is  to 
introduce  his  characters  to  his  audience,  and  the  sec- 
ond thing  he  has  to  do  is  to  tell  the  audience  all 
about  them. 

But  how  is  he  going  to  do  this*?  He  cannot  say 
anything  himself,  as  a  novelist  can  in  a  book.  He 
cannot  begin  with  an  introductory  chapter  telling  the 
secret  history  of  their  great-grandfathers.  The  min- 
ute the  curtain  rises  and  the  characters  are  disclosed, 
the  poor  author  has  got  to  get  out  of  sight  and  let 
the  characters  do  all  the  talking.  Now,  people  in 
daily  life  don't  go  around  as  a  rule  telling  who  they 
are  and  all  about  themselves.  They  don't  have  to. 
How,  then,  is  the  author  going  to  let  you  know  what 
you  must  know  about  these  people,  without  making 
them  act  in  a  ridiculous  manner?  And  remember, 
too,  he  has  only  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  at  most,  to 
do  it  in — really  not  that  long,  for  his  first  act  must 
go  forward  as  well  as  explain  the  past. 

Easy,  eh?  Why  do  so  many  plays  (or  rather, 
why  did  they)  open  with  a  scene  between  a  stiff- 
necked  butler  with  a  British  accent,  and  a  pert 
French  maid  in  a  short  black  skirt?  Is  it  because 


WHAT  IS  ENTERTAINMENT?      335 

these  two  characters  are  funny?  No.  They  ceased 
being  funny  long  ago — if  they  ever  were.  It  is  be- 
cause the  butler  is  supposed  to  know  all  about  the 
family  affairs,  particularly  "the  master's,"  and  the 
maid  to  know  all  about  her  mistress,  and  both  are 
supposed  to  like  to  gossip  on  such  subjects,  so  they 
can  explain  the  family  history  more  or  less  plausibly 
to  the  audience,  and  finally  cry,  "  'Sh — here  comes 
the  master  now!"  Out  they  scurry,  and  you  know 
the  man  who  enters  is  Mr.  Beaumont  Smith,  that 
he's  carrying  on  with  an  actress,  that  his  wife  sus- 
pects him,  and  that  she's  going  in  disguise  that  night 
to  the  French  Ball  to  catch  him  at  his  pranks.  Dear 
old  butler,  pert  French  maid,  many  a  drama  could 
never  have  been  launched  without  your  aid!  The 
telephone  is  rapidly  superseding  you,  driving  you 
out  of  employment,  but  we  shall  always  hold  you  in 
grateful  memory! 

Another  potent  aid  to  the  dramatist  is  the  "Do 
you  remember*?"  speech.  This  speech  is  usually 
made  by  a  man  to  a  woman.  Ostensibly  it  is  done 
to  soften  the  woman's  heart,  perhaps,  but  really  it 
is  done  to  explain  the  plot  to  the  audience. 

"Do  you  remember  the  low  light  on  the  hills  that 
day,  and  the  smell  of  violets'?  Your  hand  lay 


336  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

clasped  in  mine,  and  I  almost  forgot  that  I  was 
working  for  the  Sugar  Trust  at  ten  dollars  a  week, 
and  so  couldn't  ask  you  to  marry  me." 

"Aha!"  we  cry,  delighted  at  our  perspicacity, 
"this  young  man  has  loved  this  girl  a  long  time,  but 
has  been  too  proud  to  ask  her  to  pledge  herself  to 
him  till  he  could  support  her  in  the  manner  to  which 
she  was  unaccustomed!" 

Exactly!  Such  was  the  practical  purpose  of  all 
the  poetry. 

Dramatists  sometimes  have  a  harder  time  now 
than  they  used  to,  in  spite  of  the  telephone,  because 
that  old  Viking  and  idol-smasher,  Ibsen,  has  made 
away  with  the  soliloquy.  The  soliloquy  was  a  very 
present  help  in  time  of  trouble.  After  all,  it  wasn't 
so  very  dreadful.  The  characters  but  thought 
aloud.  The  novelist  can  tell  the  thoughts  of  his 
characters  for  whole  pages.  But  now  convention 
decrees  that  the  poor  dramatist  mustn't  do  anything 
of  the  kind.  His  characters  must  not  say  anything 
they  would  not  be  willing  that  the  other  characters 
should  hear !  lago,  when  he  is  alone  with  the  audi- 
ence, does  not  hesitate  to  tell  them  just  the  kind 
of  a  man  he  really  is,  and  what  he  secretly  intends 
to  do.  But  nowadays,  if  a  dramatist  permitted  one 
of  his  characters  to  do  that,  he  would  have  every 


WHAT  IS  ENTERTAINMENT?      337 

critic  in  the  country  landing  on  him  with  both  feet. 
He  has  got  to  find  some  other  way  of  explaining  the 
character,  either  by  introducing  a  second  congenial 
character  for  the  first  to  talk  to,  or  by  letting  deeds 
speak  for  themselves. 

The  "Oh,  look  out  there !"  speech  is  another  favor- 
ite device.  This  is  used  for  two  purposes — to  "work 
up  an  entrance,"  or  to  make  vivid  to  the  audience 
something  which  in  the  nature  of  things  cannot  be 
shown  on  the  actual  stage.  Examples  of  either  use 
will  occur  to  the  reader  at  once. 

In  one  of  Rostand's  plays,  "La  Princess  Loin- 
taine,"  the  stage  shows  the  deck  of  a  ship.  The 
sailors  rush  to  the  rail  and  look  off  excitedly  into  the 
wings.  "A  boat  is  leaving  the  shore!"  they  cry. 
And  they  describe  to  each  other  its  passage  over  the 
water  and  the  Princess  sitting  in  it,  and  work  them- 
selves up  to  a  high  pitch  of  excitement — and  sup- 
posedly work  the  audience  up  as  well — so  that  the 
actress  playing  the  Princess  finally  enters  the  scene 
with  all  eyes  focused  upon  her,  which  is  something 
all  actresses  greatly  desire. 

You  remember  "Quo  Vadis,"  no  doubt*?  When 
the  play  was  produced  great  posters  depicted  a  naked 
damsel  on  the  back  of  a  bull,  and  a  gigantic  man 
grasping  the  bull's  horns  and  breaking  its  neck. 


338  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Rather  a  piquant  stage  situation,  you  thought,  and 
hastened  to  the  theater.  But  you  didn't  see  there 
any  naked  lady  on  a  bull's  back  while  a  giant  broke 
the  creature's  neck.  You  saw  the  spectators  looking 
excitedly  into  the  wings  at  the  stage  hands,  and 
telling  each  other  that  the  bull's  neck  was  being 
broken.  Of  course,  its  neck  had  to  be  broken,  and 
the  audience  had  to  know  it  was  broken,  or  the  story 
couldn't  go  on.  But,  since  modern  actors  are  not 
trained  to  break  bull's  necks,  it  had  to  happen  off 
stage. 

Poor  old  Pete  Dailey,  who  was  such  a  tower  of 
humor  in  the  Weber  and  Fields  company,  once  put 
the  prick  of  burlesque  into  this  technical  balloon. 
He  was  supposed  to  enter  upon  the  stage  from  a  din- 
ner party  in  the  next  room,  and  his  entrance  was 
followed  by  the  sound  of  applause  from  the  invisible 
diners.  Jerking  his  thumb  back  toward  the  wings, 
he  remarked,  "Jolly  dogs,  those  stage  hands!" 

Did  you  ever  stop  to  think  why  there  is  so  often 
a  deep,  dark  villain  in  the  drama*?  He  is  there  be- 
cause something  has  got  to  happen  to  your  hero  or 
your  heroine,  or  you'll  have  no  drama,  at  least  ac- 
cording to  orthodox  ideas.  Mr.  Shaw  won't  agree. 
Now  in  this  world  most  of  us  are  our  own  villains, 
our  struggles  are  with  ourselves,  and  our  misfortunes 


WHAT  IS  ENTERTAINMENT?      339 

result  more  from  our  own  failures,  or  our  weaknesses, 
or  our  doctor's  bills,  or  the  price  of  coal,  than  from 
the  dark  plottings  of  an  enemy.  But  in  the  drama 
these  things  are  very  hard  to  get  across,  because  they 
are  more  or  less  spiritual,  or  at  least  invisible.  It 
is,  however,  comparatively  easy  to  get  over  a  contest 
between  two  separate  and  definitely  seen  personal- 
ities. Therefore  the  villain  still  pursues  her,  even 
in  some  of  the  plays  of  Ibsen. 

If  it  is  hard  to  write  a  first  act,  it  is  still  harder 
to  write  a  last.  Indeed,  it  seems  to  be  almost  im- 
possible, so  few  good  ones  are  ever  written.  Up 
to  the  last  act,  the  author's  job  is  to  get  everybody 
as  mixed  up  and  down-hearted  and  hopelessly  licked 
as  possible,  and  then,  in  a  brief  half  hour,  he  has  to 
get  his  wife  back  in  her  husband's  good  opinion,  the 
lovers  back  in  each  other's  arms,  the  missing  child 
restored,  the  lost  will  found,  the  drunkard  sobered 
up,  the  black  sheep  reformed  and  owning  a  gold 
mine  out  West.  Anybody  who  has  tackled  the  job 
of  reforming  a  black  sheep  or  reconciling  a  hope- 
lessly mismated  couple,  knows  it's  a  job  that  cannot 
be  performed  between  ten-thirty  and  eleven  of  the 
evening.  But  the  dramatist  has  to  do  it,  and  make 
it  seem  as  plausible  and  logical  as  he  can.  If  he 
doesn't,  we  (and  our  wives)  declare  his  play  "ends 


340  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

unhappily,"  and  refuse  to  have  anything  more  to 
do  with  it. 

The  dramatist,  then,  without  any  tools  save  the 
conversation  of  the  characters  in  his  play,  has  to  tell 
his  audience  who  these  characters  are,  what  they 
have  been  doing  before  the  play  begins,  what  sort  of 
folk  they  are;  he  has  to  lead  them  through  a  series 
of  adventures  constantly  increasing  in  tension  or 
excitement;  and  finally  he  has  to  solve  as  logically 
as  he  may  the  various  problems  their  actions  have 
raised.  He  never  can  speak  for  himself,  he  must 
always  speak  through  the  mouths  of  his  characters, 
and  he  must  do  it  all  in  three  hours.  No  wonder 
he  is  hard  put  to  it  for  devices. 

The  best  play,  of  course,  other  things  being  equal, 
is  the  one  in  which  the  characters  reveal  themselves 
so  naturally  that  we  are  not  aware  they  are  doing 
it,  and  in  which  every  speech  which  explains  the  past 
is  also  directly  related  to  the  present  and  the  future; 
and  in  which,  finally,  the  solution  is  not  forced,  but 
a  natural  and  inevitable  outgrowth  of  the  characters. 
In  the  best  plays,  we  are  least  conscious  of  the  means 
employed  to  get  the  plot  across.  The  first  act  of 
Augustus  Thomas's  "As  a  Man  Thinks"  is  perhaps 
one  of  the  best  modern  examples  of  the  dramatist's 
art  completely  concealing  itself.  We  watch  a  group 


WHAT  IS  ENTERTAINMENT?      341 

of  people  chatting  over  afternoon  tea,  and  before 
we  are  aware  of  it  we  know  all  about  their  past  and 
are  eager  to  learn  what  their  future  is  going  to  be. 
Thinking  it  over  afterward,  we  see  how  craftily  it 
was  done.  The  skill  of  this  act  may  be  called  dra- 
matic style  in  the  fullest  sense,  embracing  pith  and 
dignity  and  thrust  of  language,  exposition  so  na- 
turally made  that  we  are  never  conscious  that  the 
characters  are  explaining  themselves  for  our  benefit, 
and  all  the  time  a  direct  forward  march  of  the  story, 
so  that  when  the  act  ends  we  sense  the  problem  and 
are  nearer  to  its  heart. 

Is  there  no  entertainment  to  be  found  in  the  un- 
folding of  a  play  so  written?  Are  we  to  be  so  heed- 
less and  childish  as  theatergoers  that  we  absorb  any 
story,  regardless  of  its  workmanship?  Are  we  to 
have  no  standards  of  dramatic  style,  so  that  clumsy 
exposition  and  the  failure  to  cover  the  bare  bones 
of  the  plot  do  not  hurt  us?  Until  we  do  have  such 
standards,  we  shall  have  no  native  drama  worthy  of 
serious  consideration. 

For  the  more  obvious  entertainment  to  be  found 
in  ideas,  in  the  drama  which  takes  a  definite  point 
of  view  on  life  or  some  social  problem,  there  is 
hardly  time  to  speak  now.  Such  a  drama,  if  its 
viewpoint  is  sound,  and  if  it  is  well  written,  is  fairly 


342  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

sure  to  make  its  way,  even  if  slowly.  We  have 
perhaps  said  enough  to  show,  at  any  rate,  that  the 
pleasure  of  theatergoing  need  not  be  narrowly  and 
childishly  confined  to  an  entertaining  story — that 
those  who  so  desire  may  find  stimulation  along 
almost  every  line  of  esthetic  attack,  or  may  at  least 
look  for  it.  If  they  fail  to  find  it,  they  have  a  per- 
fect right  to  complain  that  our  theater  is  not  yet 
fulfilling  its  entire  function  and  its  whole  duty. 


A  QUIET  EVENING  IN  THE  THEATRE 

1914 

A  quiet  evening  in  New  York!  You  go  first  to 
a  restaurant  for  dinner,  where,  as  you  enter,  a  cloak 
boy  (or  more  often  girl)  seizes  your  coat  and  hat. 
There  is  noise  and  confusion  in  the  dining-room. 
The  ceiling,  much  too  low  for  comfort,  is  painful 
with  lights.  The  tables  are  filled  with  people  all 
talking  at  once,  at  the  top  of  their  voices.  They 
have  to  talk  at  the  top  of  their  voices  because  if  they 
didn't  they  couldn't  hear  themselves,  let  alone  hear- 
ing the  other  fellow.  The  reason  is  that  they  are 
talking  against  a  full  orchestra,  sawing  rag  time 
against  the  sounding-board  of  the  too-low  ceiling. 

Every  now  and  then,  to  be  sure,  this  music  ceases, 
and  then  comes  a  blessed  sensation  of  comparative 
quiet,  broken  only  by  the  chatter  of  200  people,  the 
clatter  of  dishes,  the  feet  of  the  waiters.  It  is  much 
like  the  sensation  experienced  when  water,  which 
has  got  into  your  ear  while  swimming,  all  of  a  sud- 
den is  released.  But  this  blissfully  normal  condi- 

343 


344  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

tion  does  not  last  long.  You  have  just  begun  to 
enjoy  your  roast  and  your  table-mate's  talk,  when 
crash,  bang,  zim,  teum-tum  goes  the  band  again,  and 
the  plug  goes  back  into  your  ears,  till  against  the 
eardrums  is  the  roaring  of  Niagara. 

After  this  pleasant  meal,  you  and  your  friend 
start  out  for  the  theatre,  having  tipped  the  waiter 
enough  to  buy  10,783  cauliflower  seeds,  which,  when 
grown,  would  be  worth  $1078.30,  at  the  very  least. 
The  trip  to  the  theatre  is  uneventful.  If  you  take 
a  taxi  you  merely  have  the  sensation,  so  dear  to  the 
heart  of  the  New  Yorker,  of  being  robbed.  If  you 
walk,  you  encounter  no  more  exciting  adventures 
than  being  spattered  with  mud,  nearly  run  down, 
deafened  by  the  roar  of  an  elevated  train  over  your 
head,  and  made  hoarse  by  trying  to  talk  against  the 
opposition  of  Manhattan  street  traffic.  Presently 
you  reach  the  theatre  where  the  popular  play  you 
wish  to  see  is  being  presented. 

Of  course,  you  already  have  your  tickets,  pur- 
chased at  a  hotel  for  $2.50  each  (or  more),  and  you 
take  your  seats  one  minute  before  the  time  adver- 
tised for  the  curtain  to  rise.  Then  you  look  about 
you  at  the  tiers  of  empty  chairs  and  wonder  why  this 
play  is  called  a  success.  In  fact,  you  don't  begin 
to  realize  why  until  a  quarter  or  even  a  half  hour 


QUIET  EVENING  IN  THE  THEATRE     345 

later,  when  the  curtain  at  last  goes  up  and  the  play 
begins. 

Then  the  people  begin  to  come.  They  descend 
the  aisles  talking.  They  climb  over  your  feet. 
They  step  on  your  hat.  They  bang  down  their 
chairs.  They  make  a  noise  taking  off  their  wraps. 
They  rustle  and  fidget  and  cough.  The  last  of  them 
do  not  get  in  and  settled  down  till  the  first  act  is 
nearly  over.  What  the  first  act  has  all  been  about 
you  have  but  the  vaguest  notion.  It  has  been  plain 
that  the  actors  were  working  very  hard,  and  shouting 
very  loud.  That  fat  actor  is  hoarse  and  perspiring, 
like  a  man  who  has  been  trying  to  harangue  a  mob 
armed  with  fish-horns  to  drown  his  efforts.  You 
are  rather  sorry  for  the  actors.  You  are  even  more 
sorry  for  yourself.  You  are  not  sure  that  the  act 
was  uninteresting.  Being  young,  you  still  are  opti- 
mistic. 

Then  comes  a  breathing  spell.  Thanks  to  David 
Belasco,  pioneer,  theatre  orchestras  have  been  more 
or  less  given  up,  and  during  the  first  intermission 
your  ears  are  rested,  and  in  the  dim  "artistic"  light 
of  the  modern  playhouse,  hearing  only  the  meaning- 
less buz  of  1200  people  all  talking  at  once,  you  find 
refreshment  reading  "What  the  Men  Will  Wear" 
in  your  programme. 


346  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Then  the  second  act  begins.  You  very  soon  dis- 
cover that  all  the  actors  have  got  the  habit.  The 
play,  of  course,  is  a  farce  (the  programme  says  a 
comedy).  Have  we  not  stated  that  it  was  a  suc- 
cessful play?  The  actors  are,  therefore,  being 
funny.  There  is  no  doubt  about  it,  or  at  least  they 
don't  intend  that  there  shall  be  any  doubt  about  it. 
All  during  the  first  act  they  knew  they  had  to  shout 
to  make  themselves  heard  in  Row  A  above  the  din 
of  falling  chair  seats  and  the  multifold  rustle  of  ar- 
rival. Now  they  just  keep  right  on  shouting. 
Shouting  has  become  second  nature  to  them.  Some- 
body once  spoke  of  an  actor  who  "wafted  an  epi- 
gram across  the  footlights."  He  was  a  prehistoric 
relic — or  Marie  Cahill.  When  an  actor  now  has 
an  epigram  to  convey,  he  plays  he  is  a  German 
howitzer  and  the  audience  is  Rheims  Cathedral,  and 
he  puts  in  the  full  charge  and  lets  her  bang.  While 
the  big,  bow-wow  actor  is  playing  he  is  a  German 
howitzer,  all  the  other  actors  play  they  are  three- 
inch  field  pieces  discharging  shrapnel  at  the  gallery. 
Of  course,  they  can't  all  be  firing  at  once,  but  at 
least  they  can  be  changing  positions,  getting  into 
more  favorable  cover  to  shell  the  boxes  or  bombard 
the  balcony. 

A  battery  doesn't  change  its  position,  of  course, 


QUIET  EVENING  IN  THE  THEATRE     347 

without  a  deal  of  noise  and  bustle.  Therefor  the 
stage  seems  to  be  in  a  constant  state  of  hubbub  and 
confusion.  The  stage  directors'  copy  of  the  script 
must  look  something  like  this: 

CHAS. — "You're  a  liar!"  (Xs  left  and  lights  a 
cigarette. ) 

JEROME — "Don't  you  dare  call  me  a  liar. 
You're  another!"  (Xs  right  and  sits  down.) 

MARCIA  (Rising  from  the  window  seat) — "Gen- 
tlemen, gentlemen,  I  beg  that  you  will  not  quarrel 
on  account  of  me.  Poor  little  me — I  am  not  worth 
it.  Besides,  it  was  not  my  Pomeranian,  anyhow." 
(Comes  down  stage  showing  how  her  gown  is  cut, 
and  lifts  her  arms  high  over  her  head,  showing  the 
dimples  in  her  elbows.) 

CHAS. — "Not  your  Pom?"  (Xs  right,  clenching 
fists  and  stamping  feet,  and  looks  out  of  the  win- 
dow.) 

JEROME — "Not  your  Pom?"  (Crosses  left  and 
kicks  a  footstool  into  the  fireplace.) 

MARCIA  (walking  right,  then  left,  across  stage 
to  each  man  and  putting  her  arms  on  his  shoulders, 
leaving  powder  marks) — "No,  not  my  Pom!" 
(Goes  up  stage  and  poses  by  the  draperies.) 

CHAS.  (raising  hands  to  heaven  and  Xing  left) 
—"Damn!" 


348  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

JEROME  (Xing  right  and  biting  the  end  off  a 
cigar,  spitting  it  into  the  footlights) — "Hell !" 

At  this  witty  sally  the  audience  laughs  uproar- 
iously, and  the  actors  "hold  the  picture." 

American  stage  management,  as  we  see  it  at  the 
present  time  in  our  "best-seller"  type  of  drama,  pro- 
duces, in  fact,  very  much  the  same  effect  as  modern 
dance  music — din  and  monotony  are  its  character- 
istics. Every  sentence  must  be  shouted,  every 
"point"  driven  home  with  an  exaggerated  emphasis, 
accompanied  by  an  exaggerated  gesture,  which  cor- 
responds to  the  whack  of  the  big  bass  drum.  It  is 
against  the  rules  to  sit,  stand  or  recline  in  any  one 
spot  for  more  than  a  minute  at  a  time  unless  you  are 
a  pretty  actress  in  a  bed.  Then  you  may  stay  there, 
if  you  bounce  up  and  down  at  regular  intervals. 
"We  must  have  action,"  the  manager  cries,  by  which 
he  means  that  the  actors  must  run  about,  like  the 
dancing  mice  in  a  shop  window.  Perhaps  it  is  only 
natural  that  folks  who  like  ragtime  like  this  sort  of 
thing.  But  it  is  the  "art"  of  semi-barbarians. 

The  leader  of  the  cult  of  St.  Vitus  and  the  Bull 
of  Bashan  is  undoubtedly  the  clever  Mr.  Cohan. 
He  is  to  drama  and  stage  management  what  Irving 
Berlin  is  to  music.  If  he  staged  "Macbeth"  it 
would  be  in  rag-time.  How  the  actors  rush  in  and 


QUIET  EVENING  IN  THE  THEATRE     349 

out,  hurry  and  shout,  bustle  and  perspire,  in  one  of 
his  plays!  They  are  never  still  a  second.  No 
"scene,"  in  the  French  sense,  lasts  more  than  five 
minutes,  just  as  there  is  no  paragraph  more  than  ten 
lines  long  in  Munsefs  Magazine.  The  scenes  are 
often  clever,  but  how  very  noisy!  The  pace,  the 
racket,  bewilders  you,  hypnotizes  you.  You  feel, 
when  you  come  out  of  the  theatre,  that  you  have  cer- 
tainly got  your  money's  worth  of  something,  any- 
how. 

When  you  come  away  from  "A  Pair  of  Silk  Stock- 
ings" at  Mr.  Ames's  Little  Theatre,  you  don't  feel 
that  you've  had  your  money's  worth.  Nobody  has 
shouted,  nobody  has  rushed  around.  At  times,  for 
two  or  three  minutes  on  a  stretch,  the  actors  and 
actresses  sat  in  their  chairs  in  drawing-room  or  cham- 
ber and  talked  just  the  way  people  really  do  talk. 
Why  pay  $2  for  this  sort  of  thing1?  It's  as  much 
of  a  swindle  as  Garrick's  Hamlet  seemed  to  Part- 
ridge. 

Of  course,  it  wasn't  "A  Pair  of  Silk  Stockings" 
that  you  and  your  friend  went  to  see  when  you  spent 
your  happy  evening  in  New  York.  More  likely  you 
went  to  "It  Pays  to  Advertise,"  or  some  really  good 
production  where  the  actors  really  act  and  earn  their 
miserable  salaries. 


350  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

After  it  was  over,  of  course  you  went  somewhere 
for  supper.  Once  more  there  was  the  too  low  ceil- 
ing, the  clatter  of  dishes,  the  crash  of  rag-time,  the 
chatter  of  screaming  voices  trying  to  make  them- 
selves heard  above  the  din,  and  now,  in  addition, 
the  shuffle  of  one-stepping  feet  upon  the  dance  floor. 
Somewhere  around  one  or  two  o'clock  you  headed 
through  a  deserted  side  street  toward  your  lodging, 
and  suddenly  became  aware  of  a  queer  atmospheric 
condition  known  as  silence.  It  made  you  dizzy  at 
first.  Gradually,  too,  you  became  aware  of  a  thing 
up  above  the  end  of  the  street  which  memory  told 
you  was  a  star  in  the  sky. 

Presently  you  caught  your  bed  when  it  came 
around,  climbed  in,  and  dreamed  that  you  were 
armed  with  a  Ross  rifle  defending  a  trench  labelled 
Row  H,  from  the  assaults  of  seventeen  thousand 
actors  and  actresses  and  Marie  Dressier,  who  were 
charging  upon  you  with  strange  cries  and  violent 
gestures,  and  hurling  shells  filled  with  frightful, 
jagged  fragments  of  the  English  language. 

Such  is  a  quiet  evening  in  the  American  theatre. 


MIDDLE-AGED  MORALIZING  FOR 
YEASTY  YOUNGSTERS 

1915 

A  fear  haunts  us  that  we  are  reaching  that  period 
of  life  James  Huneker  once  called  his  anecdotage. 
At  any  rate,  we  are  more  and  more  given  in  the  the- 
atre to  reminiscences  and  memories  of  "the  palmy 
days" — said  palmy  days  for  us  being  the  eighteen- 
nineties  and  the  first  few  years  of  the  present  cen- 
tury. Quaint  as  it  may  seem  to  older  people  to 
speak  of  the  eighteen-nineties  as  the  palmy  days 
(they  were,  after  all,  but  yesterday),  we  are  con- 
stantly being  mournfully  impressed  with  the  fact 
that  a  new  generation  has  sprung  suddenly  into 
active  being  which  never  went  to  plays  in  the  eigh- 
teen-nineties, which  never  adored  Julia  Marlowe  as 
Juliet,  nor  shed  scalding  tears  at  Mrs.  Fiske's  Tess, 
nor  hailed  the  advent  of  "The  Second  Mrs.  Tan- 
queray"  as  the  swimming  of  a  new  planet  into  their 
ken,  nor  even  realized  Clyde  Fitch  as  a  contempo- 
rary. We  talk  with  theatre-goers  in  New  York  to- 

351 


352  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

day,  in  fact,  who  have  never  seen  a  play  by  Clyde 
Fitch  on  the  stage,  and  know  James  A.  Herne  only 
as  a  name,  not  a  memory.  Whereupon  we  feel 
"chilly  arid  grown  old,"  and  begin  to  narrate  anec- 
dotes about  "Shore  Acres"  or  "The  Climbers." 

Those  were  hopeful  days,  the  eighteen-nineties ! 
Henry  Arthur  Jones  was  preaching  "The  Great 
Realities  of  Modern  Life,"  and  William  Winter 
was  thundering  against  Ibsen.  Now,  when  a  play 
by  Ibsen  is  produced,  nobody  thunders.  Where  is 
the  fun  in  fighting  for  a  man  if  nobody  fights  against 
him?  Now,  pretty  much  anything  can  be  produced 
(not  that  it  is,  but  it  could  be)  without  arousing 
protest  and  hostility.  And,  alas!  a  certain  zest  is 
gone.  Art,  like  anything  else,  thrives  on  battle 
smoke  and  martyrdom.  We  youngsters  were  boast- 
ing of  what  the  passing  generation  scorned,  even 
abominated.  We  saw  a  new  dawn  on  the  horizon, 
a  new  drama,  a  theatrical  renaissance.  Even  when 
we  had  to  score  Fitch  for  his  frivolities  and  conces- 
sions to  "popular  taste,"  we  still  upheld  him  as  a 
worker  in  the  native  vineyard,  a  butterfly,  perhaps, 
but  a  butterfly  with  genius.  We  battled,  later,  for 
"The  Easiest  Way" — ageing,  it  is  true,  but  still 
hopeful. 

But  all  that  is  past  history.     Now,  when  we  are 


MIDDLE-AGED  MORALIZING       353 

"chilly  and  grown  old,"  we  look  about  us  on  the 
American  stage  and  wonder  what  became  of  our  re- 
naissance, wonder  where  that  sun  of  American  drama 
is  which  had  flushed  pink  the  eastern  sky,  wonder 
what  there  is  to  fight  for.  Alas!  there  isn't  even 
a  William  Winter  to  fight  against. 

These  melancholy  reflections  have  been  inspired  by 
a  visit  to  Mr.  Anspacher's  play,  "The  Unchastened 
Woman."  "The  Unchastened  Woman,"  to  be  sure, 
is  a  popular  success  and,  in  our  humble  judgment, 
deservedly  so.  Why,  then,  should  it  inspire  us  to 
melancholy?  Because — and  here  we  get  into  our 
anecdotage — it  is  so  much  like  a  Fitch  play,  because 
it  is  a  character  study  of  a  frivolous  and  selfish 
woman,  gaining  its  appeal  from  that  study  rather 
than  from  mere  narrative  excitement,  or  farcical  situ- 
ation, or  machine-made  slang;  and  also  because  it 
gives  the  players  a  chance  to  act — not  to  show  off 
a  few  pretty  personal  tricks,  but  really  to  act,  to 
impersonate.  Of  such  stuff  was  "The  Truth"  and 
"The  Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes." 

Still  you  fail  to  see  why  we  are  afflicted  with 
melancholy  at  the  spectacle"?  Simply  because  New 
York  is  utterly  amazed  at  the  novelty  of  such  a 
drama!  A  few  old  gray  beards  of  criticism  who 
have  withstood  the  long  siege  of  the  advertising  de- 


354  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

partments,  have  written,  to  be  sure,  about  the  char- 
acter, discussing  whether  or  not  she  is  probable  and 
agreeing  that  she  isn't  pleasant.  But  not  so  the 
youngsters.  They  are  too  surprised  to  debate 
whether  she  is  probable,  or  to  care  whether  she  is 
pleasant.  The  great,  stunning,  overwhelming  fact 
is  that  she  is  a  character,  that  her  moods  and  emo- 
tions condition  the  story,  and  that  the  actress  who 
plays  her  (Miss  Emily  Stevens)  is  so  busy  trying 
to  be  the  part  that  it  is  fun  to  watch.  These  young- 
sters have  even  been  too  astonished  to  say  that  Miss 
Stevens  talks  like  her  cousin,  Mrs.  Fiske.  Perhaps, 
indeed,  they  have  never  seen  Mrs.  Fiske !  For  she, 
too,  belongs  back  in  the  Golden  Age.  Isn't  it  just 
a  little  pathetic  when  a  good  play  which  merely  does 
what  a  good  play  ought  to  do,  excites  such  wonder 
and  admiration  because  it  does  it?  Isn't  that  a 
rather  bitter  commentary  on  the  plays  which  must 
have  preceded  it1? 

Not  long  ago  we  wrote  a  little  piece  about  the 
movies,  and  from  our  lofty  ground  of  superior  years 
and  old-fashioned  standards  bewailed  the  fact  that 
the  stories  they  tell  are  trash.  Rising  up  in  defence 
of  the  movies  comes  a  youngster,  and  with  lance  at 
rest,  charges  upon  us  full  tilt  in  all  the  confidence 
of  his  youth.  We  know  when  to  run.  We  know 


MIDDLE-AGED  MORALIZING       355 

that  it  is  no  use  trying  to  fight  youth.  "Where  on 
the  American  dramatic  stage,  in  the  past  ten  years, 
has  Mr.  Eaton  seen  plays,  the  plots  of  which  weren't 
trash  *?"  asks  the  boy,  poking  his  lance  into  our  ribs, 
before  our  lame  old  Rosinante  can  carry  us  away. 

"The  past  ten  years !"  Oh,  youth,  youth !  The 
past  ten  years  is  the  decade  of  Cohan  and  Megrue, 
of  Edna  Ferber  and  Montague  Glass,  of  Al.  Woods 
and  the  Winter  Garden.  Fitch  is  dead,  and  Walter 
appears  to  have  shot  his  bolt,  and  Moody  has  been 
cut  off  in  his  prime.  The  rising  sun  took  a  peep  at 
theatrical  conditions,  saw  a  movie  or  two,  and 
flopped  back  below  the  horizon.  Yes,  my  lad,  you 
are  right — sadly  we  admit  it.  But  it  wasn't  always 
so.  Eleven  years  ago,  now — !  Or,  say,  twenty 
years  ago,  when  you  were  rejoicing  in  your  first 
knickbockers,  ah,  then  it  was  different !  Why,  then 
we  even  used  to  see  fine  acting ! 

Acting!  We  went  recently  to  "The  Two  Vir- 
tues," by  Alfred  Sutro,  acted  by  Mr.  Sothern  at  the 
Booth  Theatre,  and  once  more  we  felt  "chilly  and 
grown  old."  How  old-fashioned  Mr.  Sothern  im- 
pressed us  as  being — and  Haidee  Wright,  too. 
Why,  here  was  an  actor  supposed  to  be  representing 
a  man  of  intellectual  force,  of  gracious  manners,  of 
sly  humor,  of  breeding  and  charm.  And  Mr. 


356  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Sothern  didn't  once  try  the  entire  evening  to  look 
intellectual,  or  to  show  his  gracious  manners,  or  to 
be  humorous,  or  to  have  the  charm  of  breeding.  It 
was  a  stupid  performance.  Any  man  of  intellect, 
good  manners,  breeding,  humor  and  charm,  would 
have  been  just  like  him.  He  didn't  act  at  all.  He 
didn't  act  any  more  than  Garrick  did  the  night  Part- 
ridge saw  him  play  Hamlet.  Any  of  our  younger 
generation  of  actors  can  tell  you  that  it  is  quite  im- 
possible to  represent  these  things  without  trying  very 
hard.  Of  course,  off  stage,  a  regular  fellow  isn't 
like  that  at  all ! 

Another  thing — Mr.  Sothern  had  so  much  up  his 
sleeve!  Nowadays,  when  a  player  is  called  upon 
to  let  his  voice  out  you  suffer  agony  for  fear  he's 
going  to  snap  a  vocal  chord.  But  when  Mr.  Sothern 
bellows  "No" — why,  it's  not  half  so  loud  as  he  could 
shout  it,  and  you  feel  quite  easy.  Again,  he  is 
called  on  to  drop  a  pretty  phrase — something  about 
myrrh  and  honey — and  instead  of  being  ashamed 
of  it  he  rolls  it  like  a  sweet  morsel  under  the  tongue 
and  you  hear  an  echo  of  Shakespearean  iambics  be- 
fore your  mind  proceeds  ahead  with  the  play.  Still 
again,  for  a  second  he  drops  his  defence  of  banter 
and  lets  a  single  sentence  of  simple  sincerity  stab 
through — and  like  magic  a  tense  hush  falls  on  the 


MIDDLE-AGED  MORALIZING        357 

entire  audience,  and  in  a  thousand  throats  the  breath 
is  caught.  It  is  so  easy  for  the  big  fellows.  Who 
can  do  it  today1?  Tell  us  their  names,  oh  youth. 

Well,  well,  there  is  an  answer  somewhere,  and 
presently  we  shall  go  hopefully  to  work  again  and 
find  it,  but  just  for  this  evening  we  claim  an  old 
fellow's  privilege  to  sit  in  the  corner  and  growl. 
There  is  a  certain  comfortable  feeling  steals  over  you 
when  you  finally  admit  that  you  are  middle-aged, 
after  all,  and  resign  to  the  youngsters  the  job  of 
justifying  the  ways  of  the  movies  to  man.  The  old 
fellow  in  "Fanny's  First  Play"  said  that  for  him 
England's  anthem  would  always  be  "God  Save  the 
Queen."  Some  day  our  mistrustful  lad  will  under- 
stand that  speech.  He  cannot  yet. 


ON  LETTING  THE  PLAYERS  ALONE 


Last  year,  during  the  rehearsals  of  a  play  which 
was  soon  to  be  shown  on  Broadway,  I  talked  with 
the  actress  who  was  to  play  the  leading  woman's 
part.  She  was,  she  said,  in  a  state  of  great  perplex- 
ity, because  the  author  wished  her  to  play  the  part 
in  one  way,  the  manager  in  another.  "When  the 
manager  isn't  there  I  play  it  the  author's  way,"  she 
said.  "When  he  is  there  I  play  it  his." 

"But  what  are  you  going  to  do  on  the  opening 
night  ?"  I  asked. 

Her  frown  of  perplexity  vanished  in  one  of  those 
smiles  which  add  fifty  dollars  a  week  to  her  salary. 
"Oh,  I  am  going  to  play  it  my  way  then  !"  said  she. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  did.  As  the  play  was  a 
success,  due  in  no  small  measure  to  her,  she  was 
allowed  to  continue  so  to  do.  But  not  all  players 
are  so  clever,  nor  so  daring,  as  she.  William  Win- 
ter, who  when  it  came  to  acting  knew  a  thing  or  two 
before  most  of  us  were  born,  always  affirmed  that 

358 


ON  LETTING  THE  PLAYERS  ALONE   359 

a  great  trouble  with  our  latter-day  stage  manage- 
ment is  the  lack  of  liberty  allowed  the  actors  to  de- 
velop their  parts  according  to  their  personal  vision 
and  capacity.  He  was  quite  right,  and  the  state- 
ment still  holds  true. 

We  generally  think  of  David  Belasco  as  our  lead- 
ing stage  manager,  certainly  as  our  most  painstak- 
ing and  thorough  stage  manager.  Yet  I  never 
talked  with  a  player  who  had  been  under  his  tutelage 
who  did  not  say  proudly,  "Why,  he  let  me  play  my 
whole  part  for  two  weeks  without  telling  me  how 
to  read  a  single  line !"  Some  actors  tell  you  this  as 
a  compliment  to  themselves,  but  some  are  wise 
enough  to  realize  that  in  reality  it  is  a  compliment 
to  Mr.  Belasco.  A  man  who  has  been  in  scores  of 
plays  under  nearly  every  management  in  New  York 
and  several  in  continental  Europe,  told  me  the  other 
day  that  there  were  only  three  real  stage  managers 
in  America.  Who  the  other  two  were,  in  his  opin- 
ion, I  refuse  to  divulge.  Personally,  I  think  there 
are  at  least  a  couple  more.  But  the  first,  of  course, 
was  Belasco. 

"I  have  just  been  rehearsing  in  a  play  staged  by 
the  author,"  said  this  actor,  "and  he  has  been  show- 
ing all  of  us  how  to  read  his  lines.  He  has  spent 
hours  showing  us.  The  result  will  be  that  not  a 


360  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

one  of  us  will  give  a  self-realized,  spontaneous, 
fluent  performance.  We  shall  all  be  more  or  less 
stiff,  and  some  of  the  less  experienced  will  approxi- 
mate parrots.  I  consider  that  stage  management  at 
its  very  worst.  Under  Belasco  the  case  is  entirely 
different.  He  often  lets  you  quite  alone  for  days, 
even  for  weeks,  at  a  time,  allowing  you  to  feel  out 
the  part  in  your  own  way,  and  trusting  you  to  make 
it  fit  the  general  scheme  of  things  by  making  the  gen- 
eral scheme  clear  at  all  rehearsals.  He  believes,  I 
suppose,  that  a  man  can  do  his  best  work  only  in  his 
own  way,  not  in  another  man's  way.  There  would 
be  nothing  authentic  about  a  composer's  music  if 
somebody  told  him  just  how  he  should  write  every 
bar.  There  would  be  nothing  exactly  inspired 
about  the  poetry  of  a  poet  who  was  told  by  some- 
body else  how  he  must  write  every  line.  I've  no- 
ticed there's  not  even  any  good  criticism  written  on 
papers  which  dictate  to  their  critics.  An  actor,  too, 
in  so  far  as  he  is  an  artist,  a  creator — and  certainly 
you've  got  to  admit  he  is  one  to  some  extent — must 
be  allowed  to  do  things  in  his  own  way  if  the  things 
he  does  are  to  have  the  stamp  of  inspiration  and 
authenticity.  It  is  just  as  easy  to  detect  the  parrot 
in  acting  as  in  music  or  poetry. 

"Well,  Belasco  understands  that.     He's  like  a 


ON  LETTING  THE  PLAYERS  ALONE  361! 

good  editor  who  lets  his  staff  be  original,  and  so  gets 
truly  readable  copy.  Of  course,  he  sometimes  has 
to  take  a  player  in  hand,  and  very  often  when  the 
play  reaches  a  point  where  the  general  effect  is  more 
important  than  the  individual  performances  he  will 
step  in  and  make  everyone  conform  to  the  effect  he 
desires.  But  that  is  part  of  his  excellence  as  a  stage 
director,  too.  He  keeps  his  units  together,  as  well 
as  letting  each  have  individual  freedom.  When 
people  talk  of  the  fine  acting  in  his  plays,  however, 
it  usually  means  that  it  is  spontaneous  acting,  each 
player  having  worked  out  more  or  less  his  own 
scheme  for  his  part  and  therefore  taking  a  vastly 
greater  pride  and  interest  in  it." 

Such  is  the  substance  of  this  experienced  actor's 
remarks.  We  believe  they  are  true  words,  and 
words  which  might  well  be  pondered.  A  play  is 
more  or  less  a  lifeless  thing,  at  the  mercy  of  the  pro- 
ducer and  the  players.  The  line  between  success 
and  failure  is  again  and  again  crossed  on  one  side  or 
the  other  as  the  acting  and  production  are  good  or 
bad.  This  season,  for  instance,  "The  Boomerang" 
at  the  Belasco  Theatre  is  a  great  success ;  but  it  might 
easily  have  seemed  nothing  but  a  trite  and  trivial 
comedy  at  another  theatre.  The  more  delicate  a 
work  is,  the  more  subtle,  the  more  closely  localized, 


362  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

the  finer  its  literary  polish,  the  more  dependent  it 
becomes  upon  its  production. 

We  have  a  great  many  people  in  this  country 
engaged  in  the  "business"  of  producing  plays.  We 
have  surprisingly  few  genuine  producers,  who  under- 
stand alike  dramatic  and  literary  values,  and  who 
are  capable  of  appraising  and  giving  instruction  in 
the  delicate  art  of  acting.  Just  as  a  painter  is  im- 
patient of  any  criticism  save  that  of  a  fellow  crafts- 
man, a  good  actor  quite  naturally  feels  that  perhaps 
he  knows  more  about  his  own  job  than  a  layman. 
Certainly,  he  knows,  as  every  other  artist  in  every 
other  branch  of  art  knows,  that  self  expression  is 
the  only  kind  worth  striving  for,  and  nothing  worth 
while  is  ever  achieved  that  isn't  a  form  of  self  ex- 
pression. To  develop  actors,  the  actors  must  be 
given  a  chance.  To  give  them  a  chance  under 
proper  guidance,  under  guidance  which  will  keep 
them  in  the  bounds  of  the  play  and  which  they  will 
respect,  the  stage  managers  must  be  artists — not 
necessarily  actors,  perhaps,  though  as  a  rule  actors 
probably  make  the  best  stage  directors — but  cer- 
tainly men  of  the  theatre  in  the  true  sense,  men 
whose  interest  is  in  the  creation  of  artistic  effects, 
not  in  "putting  over"  another  winner. 

The  late  Frank  Worthing  probably  taught  more 


ON  LETTING  THE  PLAYERS  ALONE   363 

young  players  to  act  in  his  day  than  any  score  of 
stage  managers.  He  taught  Grace  George,  among 
others.  He  played  a  part  as  only  he  could,  and  the 
young  actor  playing  with  him  strove  not  to  read  his 
lines  as  author  or  director  might  order,  but  as  they 
should  be  read  to  fit  into  the  rhythm  of  Worthing's 
performance.  He  (or  she)  strove  to  measure  up 
to  the  art  of  that  gifted  player,  and  by  feeling  the 
spur  of  emulation  and  trying  out  what  was  learned 
in  actual  performance,  made  some  of  Worthing's 
art  his  own.  Just  so  Mrs.  Fiske  has  been  known  to 
tell  a  player  in  her  company  to  go  ahead  and  take 
the  scene  away  from  her  if  he  could.  That  was  a 
spur  to  make  any  player  spurt.  That  was  one 
reason  why  Mrs.  Fiske's  companies  used  to  shine. 

At  any  rate,  one  thing  is  certain;  the  ranks  of  the 
actors  may  or  may  not  be  overcrowded,  but  the  ranks 
of  the  competent  stage  managers  most  assuredly  are 
not.  One  has  only  to  make  the  round  of  the  New 
York  theatres  and  see  the  horrid  pitch-fork  methods 
employed  by  the  producers  in  most  of  them,  to 
realize  it.  Probably  at  least  twenty-five  per  cent 
(and  possibly  much  more)  of  the  failures  in  any  one 
season  are  due  to  hasty  and  incompetent  stage  man- 
agement. Just  how  great  a  loss  this  means  in  dol- 
lars and  cents  we  leave  it  to  the  more  statistically 


364  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

minded  to  determine.  It  certainly  means  a  great 
loss  in  pleasure  and  a  serious  handicap  to  the  more 
noble  forms  of  drama.  Why  the  big  producing 
firms  do  not  select  certain  promising  young  men  and 
train  them  up  and  try  them  out  as  stage  managers  is 
one  of  the  mysteries  of  our  theatre. 


THE  TEACHING  OF  SHAKESPEARE 
IN  THE  SCHOOLS 

Spring  1916 

Shakespeare  died  300  years  ago  without  the  slight- 
est consciousness  that  he  had  written  textbooks  for 
Phillips  Academy  and  the  New  Rochelle  High 
School.  He  passed  from  amid  his  daffodils  and 
primroses — for  in  those  last  quiet  years  in  the  coun- 
try I  am  sure  he  had  especially  the  spring  blooms 
about  his  dwelling — in  the  knowledge  and  belief 
that  he  had  written  plays  for  the  practical  theatre. 
That  they  commanded  a  wide  interest  he  was  not 
unaware;  probably  he  was  not  unaware  that  they 
deserved  it!  He  had  already  seen  them  put  into 
print.  But  he  had  no  "message,"  as  Shaw  or  Brieux 
has,  and  these  quartos  were,  so  to  speak,  souvenirs  of 
a  pleasant  evening  in  the  playhouse,  or  hints  of  a 
pleasant  evening  for  those  who  were  not  present. 
Most  assuredly  they  were  not  textbooks. 

And  it  would  take  a  bold  man  to  deny  the  possi- 
bility of  a  connection  between  the  modern  decline  of 

365 


366  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Shakespeare  on  the  stage  and  the  fact  that  his  plays 
were  never  more  generally  in  use  as  textbooks. 
More  American  children  grow  up  today  with  a  sup- 
posed knowledge  of  Shakespeare  than  ever  before, 
and  fewer  ever  see  him  acted — which  simply  means 
that  fewer  have  any  real  knowledge  of  him. 

It  is  an  object  of  the  tercentenary  celebration  not 
only  to  honor  Shakespeare,  but  to  focus  attention 
upon  all  phases  of  his  works,  and  I  personally  be- 
lieve that  no  more  useful  result  could  possibly  follow 
than  a  revaluation  of  Shakespearean  study  methods 
in  our  secondary  schools,  so  complete  in  places  as  to 
be  revolutionary.  At  present  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
the  average  high  school  makes  Shakespeare  a  bore, 
and  while  it  may  teach  enough  routine  of  plot  and 
smattering  of  philology  to  jam  a  child  past  the  col- 
lege entrance  board,  it  fails  utterly  to  inspire  dra- 
matic appreciation,  to  expand  the  imagination,  to 
create  affection.  And  the  reason  invariably  is  that 
Shakespeare's  works  are  studied  as  textbooks,  not  as 
living  dramatic  performances  spoken  by  living  play- 
ers. Conditions  are  not  so  bad  as  they  were  a  few 
years  ago,  to  be  sure.  The  dramatic  renaissance  in 
our  colleges  is  carrying  down  better  equipped  teach- 
ers into  the  secondary  schools.  But  there  is  still  a 


THE  TEACHING  OF  SHAKESPEARE      367 

vast  deal  to  be  done,  and  the  present  is  an  excellent 
opportunity  for  calling  attention  to  it. 

Most  readers,  I  fancy,  have  gone  through  much 
the  same  experience  that  I  went  through  in  my 
school  days — and  they  were  spent  in  a  great  and 
famous  school,  too.  We  boys  sat  on  benches  with 
our  red-bound  Rolfe's  editions  before  us,  and  in  a 
sleepy  singsong  some  boy  droned  out  a  passage,  and 
then  the  instructor  asked  him  questions  to  see  if  he'd 
read  the  notes,  and  then  another  boy  recited  and  was 
questioned  on  the  notes,  and  then  the  instructor,  if 
he  were  feeling  particularly  energetic  that  day,  gave 
us  a  bit  of  a  lecture  on  the  beauty  of  the  poetry  or 
on  the  character  of  Rosalind,  and  we  openly  yawned, 
and  waited  for  the  bell,  and  when  it  sounded  rushed 
with  a  glad  stamping  into  the  open  air.  By  virtue 
of  much  repetition,  we  learned  that  the  quality  of 
mercy  is  not  strained,  and  we  could  repeat  the  plot 
of  "Macbeth"  in  order  to  get  into  Yale.  After 
which,  we  prayed  to  be  delivered  from  the  Bard! 
From  a  considerable  observation  of  secondary 
schools  since  that  time  I  gather  that  this  is  still  the 
way  Shakespeare  is  "taught"  in  too  many  places. 

It  is  a  crime,  and  doubly  a  crime  now  that  we  so 
pitifully  need  the  right  cultivation  of  dramatic 


368  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

imagination  and  poetic  appreciation  to  counteract 
the  stultifying  banality  of  the  movies. 

I  am  convinced  that  the  first  thing  which  should 
be  thrown  overboard  in  a  preliminary  teaching  of 
Shakespeare  to  children  of  high  school  age  is  the 
notes.  In  their  place  should  be  substituted,  by  dia- 
gram, by  pictures,  and  most  of  all,  if  it  is  a  possible 
thing,  by  practical  illustration,  a  clear  image  in  the 
pupils'  minds  of  the  Elizabethan  stage,  of  the  actual 
conditions  under  which  "Hamlet"  or  "Macbeth"  or 
"The  Merchant  of  Venice"  first  saw  the  light.  This 
preliminary  seems  indispensable  to  me,  for  until  the 
play  to  be  studied  is  sensed  in  its  practical  relation 
to  the  theatre,  until  it  is  felt  primarily  as  a  living, 
acted  story,  it  is  ridiculous  to  expect  children,  or  even 
untrained  adults,  to  grasp  its  secondary  significances. 
Moreover,  through  the  dramatic  sense  lies  the  easiest 
and  most  natural  approach  to  the  child's  interest; 
the  method  is  pedagogically  sound. 

If  I  were  teaching  Shakespeare  in  a  high  school 
— and,  I  may  add,  I  have  taught  him  to  many  boys 
and  girls  of  high  school  age,  lest  it  be  thought  I  am 
speaking  purely  from  theory — I  should  first  of  all 
(after  my  talk  on  the  Elizabethan  theatre  and  my 
display  of  pictures  and  diagrams)  have  the  desk  re- 
moved from  the  platform,  or  shoved  far  back  for  a 


THE  TEACHING  OF  SHAKESPEARE      369 

"balcony."  I  should  then  group  some  of  the  class 
at  the  sides  as  well  as  in  front,  and  with  as  much 
merriment  and  informality  as  possible  lead  the  class 
to  play  the  teacher's  platform  was  Shakespeare's 
stage  and  they  the  London  audience.  Then,  pick- 
ing boys  and  girls  for  the  various  parts,  I  should 
have  them  come  up  on  this  platform  to  read  their 
roles,  act  by  act.  No  doubt  the  players  would  be 
changed  frequently  if  the  class  were  a  large  one. 
Everybody  must  have  a  chance. 

No  effort  would  be  made,  of  course,  to  coach  any 
pupils  into  acting,  further  than  to  keep  them  in  the 
relative  positions  called  for  by  the  text,  though  a 
very  definite  effort  would  be  made — and  herein  lies 
one  of  the  finest  opportunities  of  the  Shakespearean 
teacher,  and  a  neglected  one — to  coach  each  pupil 
to  read  his  lines  not  only  intelligently  but  rhythm- 
ically and  with  full  voice  and  clean  enunciation. 
Those  who  by  nature  threw  themselves  into  acting 
would,  of  course,  not  be  discouraged,  but  those  who 
lacked  the  capacity  or  the  self-assurance  would  not  be 
made  to  feel  that  they  were  less  useful  or  failing  in 
their  work.  The  main  object  to  be  achieved  would 
be  the  creation  in  them  all  of  a  sense  for  the  dramatic 
quality  of  the  story,  a  realization  of  the  dramatic 
drive  and  interest. 


370  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

It  should  be  possible  thus  to  cover  at  least  one 
act,  possibly  two,  at  each  recitation,  and  I  should  go 
through  the  entire  play  in  this  manner  before  a  single 
word  was  said  about  the  notes  at  the  back  of  the 
book.  I  should  make  that  particular  play  a  living, 
vital  tale  to  every  child,  as  vital  as  the  movies 
around  the  corner,  before  I  turned  to  the  notes  at 
all.  I  should  abolish  most  of  the  formality  and 
discipline  of  the  conventional  classroom,  and  have 
a  grand  good  time  in  the  process. 

Then,  and  only  then,  should  I  turn  back  to  the 
text  and  go  through  it  as  classroom  work,  demand- 
ing a  knowledge  of  the  notes,  elucidating  the  simpler 
and  most  necessary  problems  of  philology,  and  dis- 
cussing -with  (not  at}  the  pupils  the  characters  of 
Shylock  or  Hamlet  or  Rosalind.  And  even  during 
this  work,  at  every  possible  opportunity  the  teacher 
ought  to  make  reference  to  this  or  that  famous  per- 
formance in  the  past,  show  pictures  of  Booth  and 
Sothern  and  Marlowe,  keep  in  every  possible  way 
the  stage  side  of  the  play  before  the  pupils'  minds. 
It  is  only  by  bringing  out  the  dramatic  element  that 
the  growing  mind  can  grasp  Shakespeare  in  his  true 
significance  and  interest.  It  is  only  by  a  practical 
demonstration  of  the  platform  stage  that  the  school 
child  can  acquire  the  capacity  for  historic  projec- 


THE  TEACHING  OF  SHAKESPEARE      371 

tion,  the  ability,  that  is,  to  view  with  comprehension 
in  one  century  the  works  of  a  previous  century, 
created  for  totally  different  conditions.  And  it  is 
only  by  keeping  Shakespeare  a  living,  spoken  thing, 
not  a  dry,  printed  text,  that  a  love  can  be  fostered 
for  verbal  beauty  on  the  stage  of  the  present,  for  the 
chiming  of  the  spoken  word,  the  strut  and  sweep  of 
poetic  passion. 

By  following  some  such  method  of  teaching  as 
this  I  think  nearly  as  many  plays  can  be  got  through 
with  in  a  year  as  by  the  old  methods,  and  I  am  very 
sure  if  only  half  as  many  are  covered,  twice  as  much 
will  actually  be  accomplished.  I  have  certainly 
demonstrated  to  my  own  satisfaction,  by  a  consider- 
able series  of  experiments,  not  only  that  the  average 
mixed  class  of  small-town  high  school  children  can 
be  made  to  enjoy  Shakespeare  by  this  method,  but 
that  they  will  thereafter  voluntarily  and  delightedly 
come  through  snow  and  slush  of  an  evening  to  read, 
in  the  same  way,  the  plays  of  Sheridan,  Goldsmith, 
Lady  Gregory,  even  G.  B.  Shaw.  I  have  had  a 
dozen  boys  and  girls  howling  joyously  over  "You 
Never  Can  Tell"  in  my  library,  and  I  have  the  next 
week  had  them  all  around  the  piano  singing  "Pa- 
tience" and  "The  Mikado."  They  didn't  ask  to 
"rag"  the  music,  either !  After  all,  that  is  a  better 


372  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

gauge  of  education  than  a  high  percentage  in  the 
college  entrance  tests.  We  do  not  study  to  pass 
examinations,  but  to  expand  our  capacities  for  useful 
living  and  rational  enjoyment.  Any  pupil  who  gets 
a  mark  of  100  per  cent,  in  Shakespeare,  but  there- 
after hates  the  plays,  has  not  "passed"  brilliantly; 
he  has  dismally  failed — or,  rather,  his  teacher  has. 
Coincident  with  some  such  method  as  this  for 
teaching  Shakespeare  in  many  cases  might  very  well 
be  an  actual  performance  of  one  of  his  plays  (in 
whole  or  in  part)  by  the  pupils.  It  is  impossible  to 
say  how  many  amateur  productions  are  made  by 
public  and  private  secondary  schools  in  America 
during  a  year,  but  the  total  is  undoubtedly  up  in  the 
thousands.  In  a  great  many  instances,  the  pupils 
are  allowed  to  pick  their  own  play  without  any  help- 
ful suggestions,  and  naturally  wanting  something 
"snappy"  or  amusing,  they  pick  some  cheap  farce 
and  waste  their  time  over  the  most  direful  rubbish. 
Quite  aside  from  the  fact  that  any  self-respecting 
Principal  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  let  his  school  be 
represented  by  anything  short  of  the  best  standards, 
the  school  is  losing  thereby  an  excellent  chance  to 
combine  its  educational  functions  with  the  spon- 
taneous impulses  of  the  children.  If  they  have  been 
properly  taught,  the  pupils  themselves  will  know 


THE  TEACHING  OF  SHAKESPEARE      373 

that  Shakespeare  wrote  quite  as  jovial  farce  as  any- 
body else,  and  that  one  of  his  plays  offers  them  the 
fullest  opportunities  for  showing  off  the  capacities 
of  everybody  in  the  class.  And  to  the  teacher  it 
means  the  culmination  of  her  efforts  to  vitalize  the 
text. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  a  school  performance  of 
Shakespeare  should  be  made  either  on  a  platform 
stage,  as  nearly  Elizabethan  as  the  resources  permit, 
or  else  out  of  doors.  If  the  former  method  is 
chosen,  both  pupils  and  public  should  be  impressed 
with  the  fact  that  the  school  is  trying  to  do  some- 
thing historical,  to  show  Shakespeare  in  an  approxi- 
mation of  his  original  dress.  It  is  perfectly  proper 
for  a  school  production  to  have  a  touch  of  the  edu- 
cational about  it,  especially  as  in  that  way  the  ter- 
rible obstacle  of  scenery  is  overcome.  The  platform 
stage  is  easily  made,  requires  no  curtain,  has  the 
charm  of  novelty,  and  centres  the  attention  on  the 
spoken  word.  It  can  be  appropriately  dressed  at 
the  rear,  also,  with  cloth  hangings,  rugs,  tapestries, 
to  relieve  its  bareness  and  give  it  color.  The  New 
Theatre's  production  of  "A  Winter's  Tale"  proved 
that. 

So  far  as  practicable,  the  costumes  should  be  made 
by  the  children  themselves,  and  at  the  least  possible 


374  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

cost.  It  should  be  a  matter  of  pride  to  make  a 
pretty  dress  out  of  cheesecloth  for  sixty-five  cents, 
rather  than  to  present  a  sumptuous  appearance  in 
velvet  and  gold.  Every  possible  phase  of  the  school 
curriculum — drawing,  music,  sewing,  manual  train- 
ing— should  be  applied  to  the  preparation  of  the 
stage,  the  costumes,  the  play,  not  only  to  reduce  ex- 
penses, but  far  more  to  connect  the  school  work  with 
reality,  to  correlate  it,  to  give  every  pupil  a  useful 
part  to  play.  Happily,  there  are  already  many 
high  schools  where  this  is  realized,  and  even  one  or 
two  where  the  pupils  have  actually  assisted  in  build- 
ing a  permanent  school  theatre. 

The  same  methods  hold  true,  of  course,  for  the 
out-of-door  performance,  which  in  many  sections  of 
the  country  is  the  more  desirable.  Not  only  is  the 
out-of-door  performance,  under  good  conditions,  apt 
to  be  more  illusive,  especially  if  given  at  night,  but 
it  has  a  peculiar  beauty  of  its  own,  and  it  permits 
the  utilization  of  more  players  and  the  arrangement 
of  pretty  dances. 

An  entire  school  can  contribute.  I  have  in  mind 
at  this  moment  a  performance  of  "A  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream"  given  by  a  little  West  Virginia  high 
school  at  the  instigation  of  the  English  teacher,  a 
graduate  of  Radcliffe  College,  where  she  had  felt 


THE  TEACHING  OF  SHAKESPEARE      375 

the  inspiration  of  the  new  dramatic  renaissance. 
The  boys  cut  young  firs  on  the  mountain  and  made 
a  stage  in  a  corner  of  the  school  yard,  screening  out 
unsightly  objects  beyond  and  creating  masked  wings 
and  entrances.  The  girls  made  all  the  costumes. 
Their  natural  love  of  dancing  was  utilized  to  the 
full.  Everybody  contributed  something,  even  the 
grade  children.  And  on  a  June  day  all  the  popula- 
tion of  the  little  town  gathered  to  watch  the  play, 
seeing  and  hearing  something  far  different  from  any- 
thing the  movies  provide.  The  sixteenth  century 
touched  hands  with  the  twentieth  across  the  years  in 
this  mountain  village,  and  the  thrill  of  eternal  love- 
liness awoke.  What  a  splendid  thing  for  a  school 
to  do!  That  is  the  real  way  to  teach  Shake- 
speare. 

While  the  superior  educational  advantages  of 
doing  a  thing  yourself  instead  of  having  it  done  for 
you  can  never  be  overestimated,  at  the  same  time 
we  should  never  lose  sight  of  the  stimulus  of  pro- 
fessional example  and  the  standard  such  example 
sets.  In  the  study  of  Shakespeare  there  is  as  yet 
almost  no  official  recognition  of  the  aid  the  profes- 
sional theatre  could,  and  should,  give  to  the  public 
schools.  Some  form  of  co-operation  between  the 
two  should  be  brought  about,  and  doubtless  will  be 


376  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

as  time  goes  on  and  our  theatre  is  better  adapted  to 
such  service. 

There  is  probably  hardly  a  reader  of  this  article 
who  does  not  treasure  among  his  most  precious  mem- 
ories certain  trips  to  the  playhouse  when  he  was  of 
school  age.  In  my  own  case,  I  know,  the  perform- 
ances of  Dickens  dramatizations  by  the  old  Boston 
Museum  Stock  Company  had  more  to  do  with  my 
development  of  a  love  for  reading  and  appreciation 
of  character  portrayal  than  anything  else.  The 
other  day  a  man  told  me  of  a  boys'  club  he  organized 
some  years  ago,  outside  of  Boston.  Miss  Maude 
Adams  sent  him  twenty  seats  to  "Peter  Pan,"  and 
he  took  the  whole  club.  Ten  years  later,  talking 
with  those  same  boys,  it  was  that  trip  to  Boston  to 
see  "Peter  Pan"  which  every  one  of  them  most  viv- 
idly remembered  and  talked  about.  Moreover, 
many  of  them  had  been  to  see  Miss  Adams's  revival 
of  the  play,  and  one  and  all  were  still  her  ardent 
champions.  Just  so  those  of  us  who  saw  Julia  Mar- 
lowe's Juliet  when  we  were  schoolboys  have  never 
forgotten  it,  but  treasure  in  our  hearts  a  fragrant 
memory,  like  a  precious  standard  of  loveliness  and 
poetry. 

But  how  is  this  co-operation  between  school  and 
stage  to  come  about?  the  reader  asks.  Especially 


THE  TEACHING  OF  SHAKESPEARE      377 

how  is  it  to  come  about  in  the  small  towns  where 
there  are  no  theatres'? 

Very  often,  of  course,  for  the  small  towns,  the 
thing  is  impossible,  making  the  more  need  for  such 
amateur  productions  as  that  in  West  Virginia,  de- 
scribed above.  But  in  the  larger  towns,  and  in  the 
smaller  places  adjacent  to  them,  a  little  co-operation 
between  theatre  managers  and  school  authorities 
could  in  a  surprisingly  large  number  of  cases  bring 
about  an  opportunity  for  the  high  school  pupils  to 
see  Shakespeare  professionally  performed.  Not 
only  are  there  several  companies  touring  the  country 
who  are  equipped  to  give  Shakespeare  out  of  doors, 
but  anything  like  a  concerted  demand  for  winter 
performances  would  keep  these  companies  as  per- 
manent organizations  during  the  year.  Moreover, 
even  today,  though  the  average  stock  company  has 
sunk  to  a  rather  low  level  of  accomplishment,  the 
right  encouragement  from  the  school  and  municipal 
authorities  would  find  most  of  the  directors  ready 
to  respond  with  occasional  matinees. 

Certainly,  nothing  could  be  better  for  the  theatre 
than  the  creation  of  a  sentiment  in  the  community 
that  it  is  not  only  a  luxury,  a  means  of  idle  amuse- 
ment, but  also  a  factor  in  the  educational  life  of  the 
town,  an  adjunct  of  the  schools.  Let  your  rising 


378  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

generation  of  school  children  come  to  regard  the 
playhouse  in  their  town  as  a  fascinating  part  of  their 
school  study,  and  you  have  made  vastly  easier  for 
the  next  generation  the  task  which  faces  us — the 
task  of  freeing  the  American  theatre  from  the  bond- 
age of  Broadway,  of  revitalizing  it  and  localizing 
it  in  each  separate  community.  One  of  the  ways  to 
accomplish  this  end,  and  one  of  the  surest  ways,  is 
to  make  the  theatre  contributory  to  our  prized  na- 
tional institution,  the  public  schools.  The  advan- 
tage will  be  mutual. 


THE  VEXED  QUESTION  OF 
PERSONALITY 


No  branch  of  art  is  so  much  discussed,  in  print 
and  in  conversation,  as  the  art  of  acting,  and  none, 
perhaps,  is  so  little  understood.  Those,  presum- 
ably, who  know  the  most  about  it,  the  actors,  either 
give  out  silly  utterances  to  Sunday  newspaper  inter- 
viewers, or  else  their  words  are  embalmed  in  such 
papers  as  William  Gillette's  "Illusion  of  the  First 
Time  in  Acting,"  or  Coquelin's  "Art  and  the  Actor," 
or  Talma's  "Reflections  on  Acting,"  which  are,  in 
this  country  at  least,  unknown  to  the  general  public, 
and  some  of  them  only  available  in  such  special 
editions  as  those  published  by  the  Columbia  Dra- 
matic Museum.  Even  those  ardent  culture  seekers, 
the  American  club  women,  who  study  earnestly 
in  preparation  for  a  symphony,  would  never  dream 
of  reading  Coquelin's  essay  before  going  to  see  Billie 
Burke  or  Maude  Adams.  However,  that  doesn't 
in  the  least  deter  them  from  expressing  an  opinion, 

379 


380  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

ex  cathedra,  regarding  the  merit  of  the  performance. 
Unfortunately,  the  average  newspaper  criticism  is 
in  little  better  state.  The  critic  usually  devotes 
nine-tenths  of  his  space  to  the  play,  dismissing  the 
players  sometimes  with  that  one  awful  word,  "ade- 
quate," and  but  seldom  writing  definitely  and 
illuminatingly  of  the  actor's  art.  One  reason  for 
this  is,  of  course,  that  so  few  dramatic  critics  remain 
at  their  posts  long  enough  to  become  competent  to 
discuss  acting.  Talma  says  it  requires  twenty  years 
to  learn  how  to  act.  We  are  disposed  to  think  it 
requires  hardly  less  time  to  learn  how  to  analyze  act- 
ing critically.  The  present  writer  has  been  a  critic 
for  nearly  fifteen  years,  and,  if  he  may  make  a  con- 
fession, always  attends  a  Shakespearean  performance 
with  a  sinking  heart,  because  he  has  not  seen  enough 
different  impersonations  of  these  great  characters  to 
give  him  an  adequate  basis  of  comparison.  How 
can  one  write  adequately  of  Forbes-Robertson's 
Hamlet,  for  example,  who  never  saw  Booth's1? 
Each  may  have  been  an  unique  creation,  but  it  is 
by  what  one  actor  can  find  in  a  part  which  another 
does  not  find  that  the  critic  learns  judgment. 

One  of  the  commonest  confusions  in  the  appreci- 
ation of  acting  is  that  created  by  the  thing  called 
Personality.  Nobody  disputes  that  personality 


QUESTION  OF  PERSONALITY      381 

plays  an  enormous  part  in  the  popular  success  of 
an  actor  or  actress,  sometimes  the  most  important 
part.  But  to  differentiate  between  the  actor  with 
a  strong  personality  who  is  also  an  artist,  and  one 
who  is  not  an  artist,  frequently  overtaxes  the  lay 
critic;  while  the  dispute  has  never  ceased  to  rage 
whether  the  use  of  a  strong  personality  is  "legiti- 
mate" or  not.  You  can  hear  it  every  day.  Only 
recently  every  paper  in  London  has  been  writing 
about  the  charming  "personality"  of  the  American 
actress,  Doris  Keane,  who  is  playing  "Romance"  in 
that  capital,  to  the  immense  delight  of  the  soldiers 
home  on  leave.  They  also  add,  almost  invariably 
in  another  sentence,  that  she  can  act.  To  very  few 
writers  does  it  seem  to  occur  that  the  revelation  of 
this  personality  in  the  theatre  may  be  itself  the  most 
artful  feature  of  her  performance. 

What  is  the  end  and  aim  of  acting1?  It  is  not 
to  repeat  the  author's  lines.  It  is  not  to  give  pro- 
pulsion to  the  events  of  the  author's  story.  If  is  to 
bring  to  life  the  author's  characters.  Now,  in  the 
actual  world,  the  character  does  not  exist  devoid  of 
personality — a  quality  we  need  hardly  try  to  define, 
since  it  eludes  definition,  but  is  perfectly  well  recog- 
nized by  everybody.  The  most  interesting  people 
are  those  with  the  most  interesting  personalities.  A 


382  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

colorless  person  we  say  has  little  personality.  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  bristles  with  it,  however  tired  some 
of  us  get  with  his  brand.  Therefore,  on  the  stage, 
the  most  interesting  characters  in  the  play  are  bound 
to  be  those  for  whom  the  author  has  imagined  the 
most  vivid  and  interesting  personalities.  But  the 
grim  fact  confronts  the  actor  about  to  assume  one 
of  these  roles  that  you  cannot  create  personality  by 
putting  on  a  wig,  reciting  speeches,  carrying  a  cane, 
aping  certain  gestures,  donning  a  hoop  skirt.  In 
fact,  you  cannot  create  personality  at  all.  You  can 
train  and  direct  it,  you  can  even  develop  it,  perhaps, 
as  so  many  men  unconsciously  do  who  give  their 
lives  to  a  certain  occupation;  we  all  know  doctors 
who,  from  much  association  with  sickness,  have  de- 
veloped a  natural  gentleness  till  it  shines  from  their 
faces  and  is  the  best  medicine  they  administer !  But 
God  and  his  grandparents  gave  the  actor,  as  well  as 
every  other  man,  what  potential  personality  he  may 
possess,  and  it  is  this  personality  of  his  own  which 
he  has  got  to  use  in  creating  a  live  stage  character. 
If  he  succeeds  in  giving  you,  in  the  audience,  a  com- 
plete illusion  of  being  that  stage  personage,  it  may, 
of  course,  be  a  happy  accident,  merely — i.e.  his  own 
personality  may  be  exactly  that  of  the  stage  part. 
Such  an  occurrence  is  not  uncommon.  But,  much 


QUESTION  OF  PERSONALITY      383 

more  often,  it  means  that  the  player  has  used  his 
personality  as  one  of  the  best  weapons  of  his  art, 
and  is  showing  you,  did  you  but  know  it,  a  very 
fine  piece  of  craftsmanship.  He  is  fusing  his  per- 
sonality with  that  of  the  character,  and  by  his  own 
native  resources  vitalizing  the  dramatist's  con- 
ception. 

It  is  perfectly  true,  as  the  London  papers  all  re- 
marked, that  Doris  Keane  has  a  pronounced  person- 
ality. It  was  just  as  pronounced  in  the  second  part 
she  played,  years  ago,  the  seduced  maiden  in  Henry 
Arthur  Jones'  drama,  "The  Hypocrites,"  the  part 
which  made  her  known  to  the  public.  But  this  part 
was  totally  different  from  her  role  in  "Romance." 
She  was  unmistakably  Doris  Keane  in  both  imper- 
sonations— and  she  was  as  unmistakably  the  charac- 
ters in  the  two  plays.  How  shall  we  explain  the 
paradox"?  Billie  Burke  would  have  been  Billie 
Burke  in  both  plays,  because  she  cannot  act.  Miss 
Keane,  no  less  individual,  contrives  to  give  the  illu- 
sion of  two  contrasted  women. 

Well,  that  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  the  actor's 
art,  which  even  so  skilled  a  player  as  George  Arliss 
throws  too  little  light  upon,  in  his  introduction  to 
William  Gillette's  "Illusion  of  the  First  Time  of 
Acting."  He  does  suggest  that  the  mysterious  thing 


384  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

we  call  personality  is  made  up,  say,  of  a  hundred 
elements.  Now  it  may  well  be  that  only  ten  of  these 
elements  are  needed  to  assume  the  guise  of  a  charac- 
ter. The  other  ninety  remain  in  the  actor  as  a 
reserve  force,  to  be  drawn  upon  to  give  charm  and 
vitality  to  his  impersonation.  Only,  alas !  Mr.  Ar- 
liss  doesn't  tell  us  how  the  drawing  is  accomplished. 
Perhaps  it  is  too  much  a  matter  of  instinct  to  de- 
scribe. Miss  Keane,  let  us  say,  has  dark,  magnetic 
eyes,  a  curious  mouth  that  is  extremely  mobile  and 
can  suggest  either  impish  glee  or  profound  sorrow 
very  easily  (Elsie  Ferguson  is  another  actress  with 
a  peculiarly  expressive  mouth),  and  a  general  at- 
tractiveness of  face  and  figure  which  arrests  atten- 
tion. Having  arrested  our  attention,  we  soon  real- 
ize other  features  of  her  personality,  notably  her 
humor,  not  without  its  capacity  for  a  sarcastic  edge, 
her  sensitiveness  to  impressions,  her  alert  mind. 
We  sense  her  as  rather  an  unusual  person.  Now,  to 
play  her  role  of  the  seduced  maiden  in  "The  Hypo- 
crites," she  needed  only  to  color  her  dark  eyes  a 
little  darker  with  mournfulness,  maintain  the  droop 
to  her  mouth,  and  by  her  sensitiveness  to  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  part  keep  properly  in  the  picture — and 
she  had  created  the  illusion  of  character  by  using 
only  a  fraction  of  her  natural  weapons.  The  rest 


QUESTION  OF  PERSONALITY      385 

remained  to  her  in  reserve,  subtly  to  give  interest 
and  vitality  to  her  impersonation. 

In  "Romance"  she  drew  much  more  fully  on  her 
natural  resources,  especially  on  her  humor,  her  ca- 
priciousness,  the  sense  of  strangeness  in  her  person- 
ality. But  even  in  "Romance"  she  did  not  tap  the 
capacity  for  sarcasm  and  only  partially  the  sugges- 
tion of  mental  alertness  which  we  could  always  feel 
behind  her  stage  characters  if  she  chose  to  let  us, 
inherent  in  the  actress  herself.  It  is  because  her  per- 
sonality is  so  rich,  and  because  she  has  demonstrated 
the  technical  expertness  to  utilize  those  sides  of  it 
properly  adapted  to  each  character  she  plays,  that 
we  have  faith  in  her  future  impersonations. 

Many  years  ago  Mrs.  Fiske,  an  actress  with  the 
most  striking  and  electric  personality  now  visible  on 
our  stage,  gave  a  heart-breaking-  performance  of 
"Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles,"  which  was  greatly  ad- 
mired by  the  public,  but  which  was,  none  the  less, 
widely  attacked  by  the  critics,  lay  as  well  as  profes- 
sional, because  "it  wasn't  Thomas  Hardy's  Tess." 
Her  personality,  the  critics  said,  was  not  suited  to 
Hardy's  Tess.  It  certainly  was  not.  Nobody  knew 
that  better  than  the  actress  herself.  If  she  hadn't 
known  it,  and  also  known  exactly  what  her  person- 
ality was  suited  for,  she  would  have  tried  to  give 


386  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

an  imitation  of  Hardy's  Tess,  and  made  a  miserable 
mess  of  it.  Tess  of  the  novel  was  unquestionably 
bovine,  and  Mrs.  Fiske  is  about  as  bovine  as  a  thistle- 
down in  a  northwest  gale.  Tess  had  a  certain 
peasant  stupidity.  Mrs.  Fiske's  personality  suggests 
mental  alertness  to  such  a  degree  that  she  can- 
not possibly  simulate  stupidity  convincingly.  Her 
problem,  then,  was  to  make  the  Tess  of  the  play  the 
kind  of  a  woman  she  could  plausibly  impersonate, 
so  that  her  personality  could  give  life  to  the  part. 
She  had  every  right  to  do  this — or  else  acting  is 
not  an  art  at  all,  but  a  process  of  mechanical  repro- 
duction, like  a  phonograph.  For  peasant  stupidity 
she  substituted  innocence  and  wistful  trustfulness; 
for  the  bovine  quality  she  substituted  fragility, 
nervous  sensitiveness;  for  the  passionate  dumbness 
of  Tess's  longings,  she  substituted  a  taut-wire  emo- 
tionalism. 

Thus,  in  the  same  set  of  circumstances,  the  same 
tragic  workings  of  Fate  were  plausibly  brought 
about,  the  same  terrible  lesson  was  read.  Her  Tess 
was  no  less  a  human  creature  in  the  fell  clutch  of 
circumstance  than  Hardy's  maiden.  Here  was  an 
almost  perfect  example  of  an  actor's  realization  that 
he  cannot  get  away  from  his  own  personality,  and 
that  to  succeed  greatly  in  the  theatre  he  must  by 


QUESTION  OF  PERSONALITY     387 

every  device  of  art  use  his  personality  to  give  life  and 
illusion  to  his  role. 

Mrs.  Fiske's  Tess  was  not  so  satisfactory  a  per- 
formance as  her  Becky  Sharp,  however,  because 
Becky's  personality  and  hers  have  two  things  so  won- 
derfully in  common — an  ironic  sense  of  humor 
(which  had  to  be  suppressed  entirely  in  Tess),  and 
the  dynamic  magnetism  of  a  sleepless  will.  Mrs. 
Fiske  all  her  life  has  been  a  fighter.  She  fought  the 
Theatrical  Syndicate  singlehanded  after  everybody 
else  had  knuckled  under.  All  her  life  she  has  been 
a  worker,  the  first  at  rehearsals,  the  last  to  leave. 
Indeed,  resolution,  will  power,  bottled  energy,  ra- 
diate from  her  little  person  when  she  chooses  to  re- 
lease them,  and  ring  in  her  bitten  tones.  Therefore 
with  no  effort  she  took  Becky  to  her  bosom.  And, 
by  the  same  token,  she  ought  by  rights  to  be  the 
great  Lady  Macbeth  of  our  generation. 

To  go  back  a  little,  all  the  evidence  of  his  con- 
temporaries and  of  those  who  still  remember  him, 
points  to  the  fact  that  Booth's  Hamlet,  perhaps  the 
greatest  achievement  of  the  American  theatre,  was 
a  happy  wedding  of  technical  skill  and  a  personality 
marvelously  akin  to  the  personality  generally  asso- 
ciated with  the  poet's  Prince.  Booth  played  other 
parts  well,  though  none  so  well.  But  there  were 


388  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

parts  he  played  badly — and  they  were  the  ones 
which  he  could  not  bend  to  his  personality.  His 
great  eminence,  his  Hamlet,  was  a  work  of  genius — 
but  the  genius  was  only  in  part  artful.  It  was  Na- 
ture which  put  him  on  the  ultimate  pedestal.  And, 
in  our  day,  how  much  of  the  charm  of  Forbes-Rob- 
ertson's Hamlet  comes  from  his  exquisite  elocution, 
his  finished  rhythm  of  performance,  his  intelligent 
insight  into  character,  and  how  much  from  that  rare 
and  princely  bearing  with  which  Nature  has  endowed 
him,  from  the  splendid  gentlemanliness  of  his  per- 
sonality? To  say  that  an  actor  who  has  such  a  gift 
is  less  of  an  artist  because  he  uses  it  is  to  say  that 
Melba  is  less  of  an  artist  than  the  village  soprano 
because  she  had  the  most  glorious  voice  of  her  gen- 
eration. 

He  would  be  an  ungracious  and  boorish  critic  in- 
deed who  said  that  Maude  Adams,  so  universally  be- 
loved for  two  decades  on  our  stage,  did  not  deserve 
the  rewards  she  has  won,  because  she  received  them 
as  a  tribute  to  her  personality  rather  than  her  art. 
Indeed,  one  may  almost  say  that  her  personality  is 
her  art.  A  personality  so  winsome  and  lovely  as  hers 
is  itself  a  work  of  genius — be  it  the  Lord's  or  not. 
Miss  Adams,  of  course,  knows  how  to  act,  up  to  a 
certain  point.  But  her  range  is  limited.  She 


QUESTION  OF  PERSONALITY      389 

speaks  very  badly,  her  attempts  at  Shakespeare  were 
almost  pathetic,  and  she  mispronounces  the  English 
language  atrociously.  Even  in  the  plays  of  her  fa- 
vorite Barrie,  she  sometimes  curiously  fails  to  grasp 
a  character,  as  in  the  earlier  acts  of  "What  Every 
Woman  Knows."  The  first  act  of  "The  Legend  of 
Leonora"  called  for  a  technical  virtuosity  quite  be- 
yond her  range.  As  Juliet,  many  years  ago,  she  was 
pitifully  feeble  in  emotional  suggestion — the  grand 
passions  are  beyond  her  powers.  Yet,  in  "The  Lit- 
tle Minister,"  a  play  almost  twenty  years  old,  she 
packed  the  Empire  Theatre  all  last  winter,  and 
nobody  would  want  to  see  any  other  actress  play 
"Peter  Pan."  As  Barrie  is  called  "whimsical," 
Miss  Adams  is  most  often  called  "elfin."  There  is 
something  in  her  personality  everybody  recognizes, 
everybody  loves,  and  when  she  finds  a  part  to  which 
she  can  give  illusion  by  this  personality  of  hers — an 
elfin  part,  as  it  were,  with  a  sweet  dash  of  tenderness 
and  womanly  humor  and  wistfulness  now  and  then 
— she  is  incomparable.  She  makes  her  slender  tech- 
nical resources  go  as  far  as  they  can,  and  the  Maude 
Adams  God  made  does  the  rest. 

How  much  personality  limits  even  the  most  tech- 
nically expert  of  players  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
case  of  Sarah  Bernhardt.  She  knew  every  trick  of 


390  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

the  actor's  art;  so  marvelous  was  her  command  of 
them,  indeed,  that  she  could  play  the  boyish  hero  of 
"L'Aiglon"  when  she  was  over  sixty,  and  now,  a 
feeble  old  woman  on  a  wooden  leg,  she  can  stand 
leaning  on  a  table  and  evoke  with  her  voice  alone 
the  tragic  passions.  Yet,  as  William  Winter  once 
remarked  with  rare  penetration,  in  all  her  impersona- 
tions of  women  she  was  always  the  woman  being 
loved,  never  the  woman  loving.  Illusion  always 
broke  down  at  that  point,  failed  of  completeness. 
It  was  a  fatal  defect  of  her  personality. 

Again,  both  Julia  Marlowe  and  Margaret  Anglin 
have  played  Cleopatra,  and  the  present  writer  saw 
both  performances.  Neither  woman  could  create  the 
illusion,  for  all  her  skill.  A  certain  inescapable 
ladylikeness,  the  scent  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  lily,  clung 
'round  them  still.  Miss  Anglin  especially  was  a 
splendid  Katherine  in  "The  Taming  of  the  Shrew." 
There  was  nothing  in  her  personality  to  contradict 
tremendous  temper  and  rebellious  spirit.  Indeed, 
her  personality  suggests  always  a  woman  of  strong 
spirit,  averse  to  leading  strings.  But  as  you  and  I 
know  Egypt's  queen,  a  certain  exoticness  is  de- 
manded, and  neither  Miss  Marlowe  nor  Miss  Anglin 
could  find  in  her  own  personality  the  right  qualities 
to  call  to  her  aid.  Nazimova,  that  "tiger  cat  in  the 


QUESTION  OF  PERSONALITY      391 

leash  of  art,"  might  play  it,  so  far  as  personality 
goes.  Then  there  would  be  no  clash  between  player 
and  part.  On  the  other  hand,  can  you  fancy  Naz- 
imova  as  Viola1?  If  it  is  right  for  actors  to  avoid 
parts  for  which  their  personalities  are  unsuited — 
and  common  sense  tells  us  that  it  is — it  is  equally 
right  for  them  to  make  the  most  of  their  personalities 
in  parts  they  are  suited  for. 

The  reader  can  easily  call  to  mind  for  himself  a 
list  of  players  with  strong  personalities,  and  can  re- 
flect on  what  use  they  have  made  of  them — whether 
a  crude,  artless  use,  such  as  Billie  Burke  makes  and 
Ethel  Barrymore  is  this  season  making  in  "Our  Mrs. 
McChesney"  (more's  the  pity),  or  a  vital,  artful  use, 
such  as  that  fine  actor  Ernest  Lawford  always  makes, 
or  Ferdinand  Gottschalk,  or  George  Arliss.  Fer- 
dinand Gottschalk,  an  extremely  individual  and  ec- 
centric little  comedian,  who  couldn't  disguise  himself 
if  he  tried,  yet  played  the  silly  ass  in  "The  Climbers" 
to  the  life,  and  in  "The  Truth"  played  the  father 
in  such  a  way  that  through  the  foppishness  and  weak- 
ness and  vanity  of  the  old  man  shone  the  remnants  of 
a  gentleman,  and  gave  the  whole  play  its  meaning. 
Gottschalk,  an  artist  and  a  gentleman,  had  only  to 
tap  his  personality  a  little  deeper,  to  draw  on  those 
reserve  forces  Arliss  speaks  of,  and  the  second  char- 


392  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

acter  came  to  life,  though  almost  in  the  exterior,  su- 
perficial image  of  the  first.  That  is  personality  gov- 
erned and  utilized  by  art. 

O.  P.  Heggie,  an  excellent  English  actor  who 
came  to  us  as  Androcles  in  the  Granville  Barker  pro- 
duction of  "Androcles  and  the  Lion,"  is  this  spring 
playing  the  old  clerk,  Cokeson,  in  Galsworthy's  "Jus- 
tice." The  two  parts  are  totally  unlike,  save  in  one 
respect.  Both  Androcles  and  Cokeson  should  com- 
mand our  loving,  if  smiling,  sympathy,  they  should 
have  a  certain  quality  of  gentleness  about  them. 
And  Heggie's  own  personality,  as  it  appears  on  the 
stage,  is  remarkable  for  just  this  winning  quality. 
You  could  never  for  an  instant  confuse  one  charac- 
ter with  the  other  as  he  plays  them,  but  neither  could 
you  fail,  if  you  had  seen  Heggie  as  Androcles,  to  rec- 
ognize him  as  Cokeson.  He  has  obediently  carried 
out  the  author's  intention,  but  he  has  artfully  em- 
ployed his  own  personality  to  accomplish  the  final 
bringing  to  life  of  the  character. 

It  is  one  of  the  creeds  of  modern  criticism  that  all 
art  is,  in  the  final  analysis,  but  an  expression  of 
personality,  of  the  artist's  personality,  of  his  vision 
of  life.  Even  the  drama,  the  most  objective  of  the 
arts,  the  one  in  which  the  writer  has  least  to  say  in 
his  own  person,  cannot  escape  the  law.  Though 


QUESTION  OF  PERSONALITY,      393 

Aristotle  called  the  drama  an  imitation,  we  see  today 
behind  the  dramas  of  Aeschylus  and  Euripides  the 
two  vivid  and  contrasting  personalities  of  the  poets, 
their  different  visions  of  life.  Their  plays  are  not 
imitations  but  revelations.  Behind  "Justice"  and 
"Peter  Pan"  and  "Major  Barbara"  we  feel  the  three 
personalities  of  Galsworthy,  Barrie  and  Shaw,  and 
if  we  had  never  heard  a  word  of  gossip  about  these 
men,  nor  seen  a  picture  of  them,  nor  read  anything 
else  they  had  written,  we  would  yet  know  them  for 
what  they  are.  There  is,  indeed,  something  almost 
terrible  to  the  artist  when  he  realizes  the  self-reve- 
lation he  makes  to  the  world  when  he  wields  a  brush 
or  blots  white  paper  with  black  ink. 

And  shall  we  deny  to  the  actor  and  the  interpreta- 
tive musician  the  name  of  artist1?  Whether  we  wish 
to  or  not,  I  fear  it  cannot  be  done.  Personally,  if  the 
actor  is  not  an  artist  but  a  mere  recording  machine,  I 
would  wish  never  to  write  another  line  about  acting. 
And  if  the  public  thought  the  interpretative  musi- 
cians were  not  artists — that  Sembrich  and  Kreisler 
and  Paderewski  and  Muck  are  but  recording  instru- 
ments, phonographs  on  legs — I  am  very  sure  the 
concert  halls  would  be  deserted.  The  instinct  of  the 
public  is  right,  of  course,  as  it  always  is  in  the  long 
run. 


394  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

But  if  the  actor  and  the  singer  or  violinist  are  ar- 
tists, if  they  contribute  a  creative  act  by  their  per- 
formance, then  what  they  do,  too,  in  the  last  analysis, 
must  be  to  reveal  their  personalities,  their  visions  of 
the  world.  They,  too,  cannot  escape  the  self-reve- 
lation. When  Sembrich  sings  Schumann's  Bride 
Songs  as  no  one  but  she  can  sing  them,  she  contrib- 
utes the  revelation  of  her  own  womanliness.  When 
the  Kneisels  play  a  Beethoven  sonata  they  contribute 
the  revelation  of  their  leader's  love  of  form  and  fine 
reverence  for  beauty.  When  any  actor  gives  a  splen- 
did performance  of  an  interesting  character,  from 
Hamlet  to  the  latest  hero  of  the  current  stage,  he 
adds  something  to  the  author's  conception,  he  con- 
tributes the  vitality  and  the  interest  of  his  own  per- 
sonality, not  merely  in  exterior  aspect  (he  may  con- 
ceivably quite  disguise  that),  but  in  far  subtler  ways. 
So  Booth  and  Forbes-Robertson  both  made  Hamlet 
live  again,  and  without  violence  to  Shakespeare — 
because  they  were  artists,  intent  on  the  interpretation 
of  a  character;  yet  each  contributed  something  rare 
and  precious  and  unique,  which  perished  when  he 
ceased  to  act.  That  something  was  his  own  per- 
sonality, his  vision,  the  thing  he  himself  was  as  a 
man.  If  this  were  not  so,  and  if  the  actors  did  not 
know  it  were  so,  it  is  inconceivable  that  anybody 


QUESTION  OF  PERSONALITY      395 

with  an  ounce  of  brains  would  ever  go  on  the  stage, 
or  survive  the  debasing  mechanism  more  than  six 
months  if  he  did.  And  if  this  were  not  so,  it  would 
not  be  true — as  it  unquestionably  is  true — that  the 
finest  performances  come  from  the  players  who  can 
add  to  the  proper  technical  equipment  the  most  va- 
ried, interesting,  profound  and  admirable  person- 
alities. 


THE  LESSON  OF  THE  WASHINGTON 
SQUARE  PLAYERS 

1916 

This  is  the  story  of  the  Washington  Square  Play- 
ers and  their  experiment  at  the  little  Bandbox  The- 
atre in  New  York.  It  is  told  here  because  it  illus- 
trates better  than  any  other  experiment  yet  tried  in 
the  American  theatre  the  vitalizing  influence  of  the 
amateur  spirit,  and  points  the  way  toward  possible 
provincial  theatres  in  various  sections  of  the  land, 
conducted  not  from  Broadway  but  by  local  artists, 
and  democratically  serving  the  local  community. 
Its  success  is  the  success  of  youth,  enthusiasm,  ideals, 
intelligence — and  democracy.  And  the  greatest  of 
these  is  democracy.  You  cannot  have  a  successful, 
i.e.  a  vital  theatre,  or  any  other  vital  art  expression, 
just  because  a  few  rich  people  decide  to  have  it. 
You  cannot  superimpose  art,  or  morals,  or  anything 
else,  from  above.  Your  theatre  must  grow  from  the 
desires  of  the  workers  in  the  theatre,  and  the  audi- 
ences in  the  theatre.  That  is  the  way  the  Washing- 

396 


WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PLAYERS      397 

ton  Square  Players  began.  They  started  in  poverty, 
and  they  are  comparatively  poor  yet.  We  hope 
they  always  will  be.  Then  the  workers  in  their 
theatre  will  always  be  its  lovers.  We  don't  want 
them  to  work  for  nothing;  but  better  for  nothing 
than  for  great  riches. 

It  was  during  the  winter  of  1914-15  that  a  group 
of  young  people,  mostly  living  in  the  region  around 
old  Washington  Square  in  New  York,  conceived  the 
idea,  or  at  least  crystallized  the  idea,  of  starting  a 
theatre  of  their  own.  Very  few  of  them  had  ever 
acted,  except  as  amateurs.  Several  of  them,  how- 
ever, had  written  plays  and  were  filled  with  a  per- 
fectly natural  desire  to  see  these  plays  on  a  stage. 
Others  were  artists  who  viewed  the  Broadway  the- 
atres with  some  contempt,  perhaps,  because  of  the 
old-fashioned  settings  and  costumes  they  saw  there. 
Still  others  were  young  men  who  had  ambitions  to 
stage  plays.  Some  of  these  men  and  women  were 
Hebrews,  some  belonged  to  the  much-written-about 
Greenwich  Village  Bohemian  crowd,  some,  like  Sam- 
uel Eliot,  Jr.,  grandson  of  the  president-emeritus  of 
Harvard,  were  positively  Puritanic  in  antecedents. 
But  one  thing  they  had  in  common — a  love  of  and 
enthusiasm  for  the  theatre.  No,  there  was  another 
thing — none  of  them  seems  to  have  had  any  capital. 


398  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

However,  they  were  young,  and  full  of  faith  enough 
not  to  let  that  fact  bother  them. 

Calling  themselves  the  Washington  Square  Play- 
ers, they  found  the  chance  to  rent  a  small  theatre 
three  miles  from  Washington  Square,  far  off  the 
beaten  track,  on  East  57th  Street  beyond  Third 
Avenue.  This  theatre  had  been  erected  for  use  by 
professional  actors,  whose  venture  had  speedily 
failed;  and  it  could  be  rented  cheaply.  So  the 
Washington  Square  Players  moved  in.  They  had 
chosen  as  their  head  director  a  young  man  named 
Edward  Goodman.  They  had  selected  three  one- 
act  plays  and  a  pantomime  for  their  opening  bill, 
painted  some  scenery  and  designed  some  costumes, 
all  without  any  relation  to  the  way  plays  are  chosen 
or  scenery  painted  on  Broadway;  and  they  had 
drilled  a  group  of  players  to  act  these  pieces  as  well 
as  they  could,  which,  to  confess  the  truth,  wasn't 
very  well. 

They  announced  their  first  performance  for  Feb- 
ruary 19,  1915,  and  said  they  would  give  but  two 
performances  a  week,  on  Friday  and  Saturday  eve- 
nings. They  did  not  advertise  in  the  newspapers — 
not  having  enough  money.  And  they  did  not  pay 
their  actors  anything,  doubtless  for  the  same  reason. 
All  seats  were  to  be  fifty  cents  each,  none  higher. 


WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PLAYERS      399 

The  first  performance  came  off  on  schedule,  and 
there  were  plenty  of  friends  on  hand  to  fill  the 
theatre.  The  newspaper  critics  journeyed  over  to 
the  wilds  east  of  Third  Avenue  also,  curious  to  see 
what  was  going  to  happen,  but  probably  not  very 
hopeful.  Your  average  critic  has  learned  by  bitter 
experience  the  futility  of  hope. 

But  the  critics  had  a  shock.  Two  of  the  three 
one-act  plays  presented  were  original  works,  "Li- 
censed," by  Basil  Lawrence,  the  story  of  an  erring 
girl  and  a  pastor  who  took  pity  on  her;  and  "Eugen- 
ically  Speaking,"  by  Edward  Goodman,  the  director, 
an  extremely  racy  satire  on  eugenics,  done  with  an 
engaging  frankness  which  made  it  quite  different 
from  the  professional  attempts  at  salaciousness  made 
occasionally  over  on  Broadway.  The  third  play  was 
Maeterlinck's  haunting  little  study  of  death  and 
stillness,  "Interior,"  very  imaginatively  and  effec- 
tively staged  at  a  cost  of  $35.00.  The  bill  ended 
with  a  pantomime  called  "Another  Interior,"  the 
stage  representing  the  interior  of  the  human  stomach, 
the  hero  being  Gastric  Juice,  and  the  villains  the 
various  courses  consumed  at  a  dinner.  Brave  Gas- 
tric overthrew  them  one  by  one,  though  with 
failing  strength,  till  at  last  he  fell  a  victim  to  a 
particularly  vividly  colored  cordial. 


400  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

On  the  whole,  the  acting  was  amateur.  But  the 
plays  themselves  were  all  vital,  full  of  meaning,  or 
full  of  racy  fun,  and  the  settings  were  unusual  and 
arresting.  The  critics  went  away  delighted.  Here 
was  something  fresh  and  new  and  different!  The 
next  night  the  theatre  was  again  sold  out.  And  it 
was  sold  out  for  every  succeeding  performance, 
though  a  third  performance  a  week  was  soon  added. 

On  March  26th  the  second  bill  was  staged.  The 
chief  feature  was  Leonid  Andreyev's  satire,  "Love  of 
One's  Neighbor,"  translated  from  the  Russian,  and 
the  players  were  not  quite  up  to  the  demands. 
They  did  better  with  "Moon  Down,"  a  sketch  of  two 
girls  in  a  hall  bedroom,  by  John  Reed,  "My  Lady's 
Honor,"  by  Murdock  Pemberton,  and  "Two  Blind 
Beggars  and  One  Less  Blind,"  by  Philip  Moeller, 
one  of  the  producing  staff  of  the  theatre.  They  did 
better  still  with  a  pretty  pantomime,  cleverly  staged 
in  black  and  white,  called  "The  Shepherd  in  the 
Distance." 

The  third  bill  was  disclosed  on  May  yth,  and  in- 
cluded Maeterlinck's  youthful  and  amusing  satire, 
"The  Miracle  of  St.  Anthony,"  "April,"  a  play  of 
tenement  house  life  by  Rose  Pastor  Stokes,  "For- 
bidden Fruit,"  a  French  amorous  trifle  adapted  from 
Octave  Feuillet,  and,  finally,  "Saviors,"  a  sketch 


WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PLAYERS      401 

written  by  Edward  Goodman,  of  a  mother  and  son 
and  their  attitude  toward  the  son's  desire  to  marry 
his  mistress. 

The  season  closed  on  Decoration  Day,  but  not 
before  one  new  production  had  been  made,  a  trans- 
lation of  Tchekov's  "The  Bear."  This  play,  to- 
gether with  the  three  most  popular  plays  on  the  pre- 
ceding bills — "Eugenically  Speaking,"  "Interior" 
and  "The  Shepherd  in  the  Distance" — made  up  the 
fourth  bill  for  the  final  performances. 

In  the  first  season,  then,  from  February  iQth  to 
May  3Oth,  1915,  the  Washington  Square  Players 
had  given  forty-three  performances  of  fourteen  one- 
act  plays  and  pantomimes,  all  but  five  of  these  being 
original  native  work.  Two  of  the  foreign  plays 
were  by  Maeterlinck,  two  from  the  Russian  and  one 
from  the  French.  All  of  them  had  been  mounted 
simply  but  for  the  most  part  effectively  and  in  the 
new  manner.  The  chief  weakness  lay  in  the  acting, 
yet  the  plays  had  sufficient  vitality,  the  whole  experi- 
ment sufficient  zest  and  novelty,  to  attract  patron- 
age, and  to  encourage  the  Players  to  reengage  the 
Bandbox  Theatre  for  another  year. 

Their  second  season  began  on  October  4th,  1915- 
During  the  summer  the  company  had  been  somewhat 
augmented,  with  the  most  promising  actors  of  the 


402  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

spring  as  a  nucleus.  There  were,  then,  in  October, 
about  twenty-five  men  and  women,  almost  without 
exception  young,  forming  the  active  players.  The 
producers,  stage  hands,  even  the  treasurer  of  the 
theatre,  were  called  in  for  mob  scenes,  and  "extra 
people."  All  told  perhaps,  counting  the  scene  paint- 
ers, costume  designers,  business  managers  and  pro- 
ducers the  Washington  Square  Players  numbered 
now  about  fifty.  For  the  second  season,  the  price 
of  seats  in  a  large  portion  of  the  house  was  raised  to 
one  dollar,  to  enable  the  payment  of  salaries  to  the 
leading  actors  and  workers,  for  it  was  determined  to 
give  six  performances  a  week,  and  the  regular  per- 
formers could  not  afford  to  donate  so  much  of  their 
time.  In  other  words,  the  theatre  determined  to  be- 
come self-  supporting.  A  few  professional  players 
were  also  secured,  including  Lydia  Lopoukova,  now 
with  the  Russian  Ballet,  and  Frank  Conroy,  for- 
merly with  Benson's  company  in  England. 

The  first  bill,  acted  on  October  4th,  did  not 
disclose  any  great  advance  in  acting  ability,  how- 
ever, though  the  acquisition  of  Mr.  Conroy  was  a 
help.  But  it  did  disclose  one  play  of  unusual  qual- 
ity, "Helena's  Husband,"  by  Philip  Moeller,  a  sa- 
tiric burlesque  on  Helen  of  Troy  which  kept  the 
audience  in  gales  of  merriment,  and  which  has  since 


WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PLAYERS      403 

been  played  in  other  theatres  through  the  country. 
The  other  plays  on  the  program  (all  of  one  act,  as 
before)  were  "Fire  and  Water,"  by  Hervey  White, 
a  war  sketch  showing  how  French  and  German  sol- 
diers, between  the  lines,  may  be  very  good  friends, 
"The  Antick,"  by  Percy  Mackaye,  and  "Night  of 
Snow,"  translated  from  the  Italian  of  Roberto 
Bracco.  This  last  play,  after  two  weeks,  was  re- 
placed by  a  revival  of  "Interior."  Business  started 
off  briskly,  and  remained  good  for  a  couple  of  weeks. 
Then  it  began  to  fall  off. 

The  second  bill  for  the  season  was  produced  on 
November  8th,  and  was  called  "a  program  of  Com- 
parative Comedy."  It  included  Schnitzler's  clever 
play,  "Literature,"  (not  very  well  acted),  Bracco's 
"Honorable  Lover,"  de  Musset's  "Whims"  (very 
inadequately  acted,  it  being  a  work  only  skilled  pro- 
fessional comedians  could  make  interesting  in  Eng- 
lish), and  finally,  "Overtones,"  by  Alice  Gersten- 
berg  of  Chicago.  This,  the  only  native  play  on  the 
bill,  proved  easily  the  most  interesting,  and  was  the 
best  acted.  Two  women,  shadowed  by  their  real 
selves,  or  "overtones,"  meet  and  talk.  They  say  one 
thing,  their  real  selves  say  what  they  really  would 
say  if  they  spoke  their  minds.  It  was  a  clever 
sketch,  and  has  since  been  acted  at  the  Indianapolis 


404  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

Little  Theatre  and  elsewhere,  even,  we  believe,  in 
vaudeville. 

It  was  not  till  the  third  bill  was  presented,  on  Jan- 
uary loth,  1916,  that  the  Players  began  to  show  the 
fruits  of  sustained  practice  in  acting,  and  gave  a 
performance  which  could  compare  with  professional 
work.  And  at  the  same  time,  it  should  be  noted, 
public  patronage  began  to  be  more  steady  and  full 
houses  every  night  the  rule.  Ultimately,  no  experi- 
mental theatre  can  succeed  until  it  develops  a  com- 
pany of  players  who  can  act.  Enthusiasm,  clever 
plays,  picturesque  and  novel  scenery,  will  never  be 
a  permanent  substitute  for  acting.  In  the  long  run 
the  theatre  rests  on  the  actors'  art,  a  fact  which  can 
never  be  ignored  by  the  founders  of  experiments. 

The  third  bill  was  most  notable  for  a  play  by 
Lewis  Beach,  one  of  Professor  Baker's  graduates  at 
Harvard,  called  "The  Clod."  It  was  adroitly 
acted,  especially  by  Miss  Josephine  Meyer,  from  the 
start  a  most  useful  member  of  the  company.  This 
tense  and  thrilling  little  piece,  perhaps  the  best  one- 
act  play  written  in  America  in  some  years,  showed 
a  mean  border  farm  during  our  Civil  War,  at  night. 
The  old  farmer  and  his  wife  were  the  only  occupants. 
War  had  left  them  nothing,  even  robbing  them  of 
sleep.  A  Union  despatch  rider,  closely  pursued, 


WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PLAYERS      405 

enters,  and  the  action  so  befalls  that  the  old  woman 
hides  him  to  avoid  trouble  with  his  two  Confeder- 
ate pursuers.  These  pursuers  demand  food  from 
her,  which  she  dumbly  gets,  but  when  one  of  them 
insults  her,  calling  her  a  clod  and  worse,  something 
in  her  snaps  and  she  shoots  them  both  dead  at  point 
blank  range  with  a  shotgun.  The  Union  soldier 
hails  her  as  the  savior  of  an  army  corps,  as  a  patriot. 
But  all  it  means  to  her  is  some  broken  crockery  and 
the  loss  of  a  needed  night's  sleep.  The  play  is  rich 
in  suspense,  in  theatrical  excitement,  and  richer  in 
spiritual  suggestion.  It  is  a  little  masterpiece. 

The  other  plays  on  this  bill  were  "The  Road 
House  in  Arden,"  a  fantastic  skit  about  Shakespeare 
and  Lord  Bacon,  the  scene  occurring  at  a  road  house 
kept  by  Hamlet  and  his  wife  Cleopatra;  a  transla- 
tion of  Wedekind's  cynical  sketch  of  the  artistic  tem- 
perament, "The  Tenor" ;  and,  finally,  a  rather  stupid 
and  poorly  performed  pantomime  called  "The  Red 
Cloak." 

The  fourth  bill,  presented  on  March  2oth,  was 
marked  by  a  still  more  noticeable  improvement  in 
acting,  and  a  consequent  increase  in  public  patronage. 
Three  plays  were  original  works,  and  all  three  were 
performed  with  precision.  The  first  was  a  thriller 
by  Guy  Bolton  and  Tom  Carl  ton  (the  former  being 


406  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

a  playwright  for  the  professional  theatre),  called 
"Children,"  in  which  a  negro  mother  shoots  her  son 
dead  rather  than  give  him  up  to  a  lynching  party. 
The  second  was  an  amusing  satire  on  divorce,  called 
"The  Age  of  Reason,"  by  Cecil  Dorrian.  Two 
little  girls  in  knee  length  frocks  and  hair  ribbons  talk 
like  the  characters  in  a  Wilde  play,  and  finally  put 
the  about-to-be-divorced  parents  of  one  of  them  on 
trial.  It  is  merry  fooling,  and  not  without  some 
point.  The  third  original  play  was  "The  Magical 
City,"  written  in  vers  libre  by  Zoe  Akins,  and  mount- 
ed in  a  setting  of  great  beauty,  quite  worthy  of  such 
professional  designers  as  Joseph  Urban  or  Livingston 
Platt.  The  scenery,  however,  left  a  more  definite 
impression  than  the  play,  which  seemed  to  be  try- 
ing to  capture  the  poetic  glamor  of  Gotham  and  its 
wealth,  the  glamor  which  snares  certain  women  and 
makes  them  the  mistresses  of  the  money  kings. 
Somehow,  realism  seems  the  proper  treatment  for 
this  theme.  At  any  rate,  "The  Magical  City"  didn't 
persuade  us  that  it  isn't.  But  the  production  of  the 
play  was  certainly  an  attempt  at  a  different  and  more 
intense  handling  of  a  sordid  Broadway  story,  and  so 
needs  no  defense.  The  bill  ended  with  a  version 
of  the  old  15th  century  French  farce,  "Master  Pierre 
Patelin,"  one  of  the  earliest  known  examples  of  the 


WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PLAYERS      407 

modern  drama  as  it  was  emerging  from  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  one  of  the  best.  Unfortunately,  the 
Washington  Square  Players,  instead  of  acting  this 
piece  in  its  integrity  and  preserving  its  historic  fla- 
vor, cut  it  unmercifully  and  acted  it  in  a  kind  of 
animated  puppet  style.  The  result  was  neither 
amusing  nor  educative.  They  would  much  better 
have  left  it  alone.  However,  some  errors  in  judg- 
ment must  be  allowed  to  everybody,  especially  to 
young  folks  and  pioneers. 

On  May  yth,  1916,  the  Players  acted  for  the  first 
time  a  long  play,  Maeterlinck's  "Aglavaine  and 
Selysette."  This  performance,  however,  was  not 
repeated,  as  it  was  a  special  production  for  the  sea- 
son subscribers  and  was  not  intended  for  the  public. 
It  need  not  concern  us  here,  though  it  is  only  fair  to 
state  that  the  scenery  was  unusual  in  design  and  full 
of  beauty  and  suggestion. 

The  last  bill  of  the  season  was  presented  on  May 
22,  and  again  a  long  play  was  chosen,  Marian  Fell's 
translation  of  Tchekhov's  "The  Sea  Gull."  This 
play  was  continued  until  June  1st,  when  the  Players 
moved  from  the  tiny  Bandbox  Theatre  to  the  Com- 
edy Theatre  near  Broadway,  and  there  presented  a 
few  of  their  most  successful  productions  until  the 
coming  of  hot  weather.  They  have  leased  the  Com- 


408  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

edy  for  the  season  of  1916-17,  needing  its  ampler 
stage  for  their  scenic  experiments,  and  its  ampler 
seating  capacity  for  their  revenue. 

The  production  of  "The  Sea  Gull,"  it  must  be 
admitted,  gave  more  practice  to  the  players  than 
pleasure  to  the  audience.  Frankly,  it  was  too  much 
for  their  still  immature  histrionic  powers.  The 
plays  of  Tchekhov  are  almost  unknown  on  the 
American  stage,  and  while  we  must  applaud  the 
courage  of  the  Washington  Square  Players  in  at- 
tempting to  remedy  this  lack,  we  cannot  help  feeling 
that  no  great  rush  to  the  Russian  dramatist  will  fol- 
low. "The  Sea  Gull,"  to  be  sure,  is  lucidity  itself 
by  comparison  with  "The  Cherry  Garden,"  but  by 
comparison  with  life  as  we  know  it  in  our  native 
drama  even  "The  Sea  Gull"  is  a  book  sealed  seven- 
fold. Not  its  sluggish  back  water  of  dramatic  pro- 
gression, not  even  its  pictures  of  alien  society,  per- 
plex us,  but  rather  its  Chinese  puzzle  of  irrelevancies. 
No  character  in  it  can  stick  to  one  idea  for  more 
than  two  speeches,  and  no  character  in  it  has  any 
will,  unless  poor  Constantine  may  be  said  to  have 
the  will  to  die.  Lack  of  will,  lack  of  concentration 
— the  two  are  really  the  same.  Tchekhov,  with  un- 
canny felicity,  makes  an  ironic  nightmare  of  these 
negative  traits  in  his  countrymen.  A  Russian  worn- 


WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PLAYERS      409 

an  once  told  me  that  "The  Cherry  Garden"  is  so  in- 
tensely Russian  that  she  herself  could  not  understand 
it  after  she  had  lived  eight  years  in  America.  "The 
Sea  Gull"  differs  only  in  degree.  We  whose  modern 
philosopher  is  William  James,  with  his  "Will  to  Be- 
lieve," and  who  still  applaud  Emerson's  "Trust  thy- 
self, every  heart  vibrates  to  that  iron  string,"  can 
have  small  comprehension  of,  or  even  stomach  for, 
a  play  like  "The  Sea  Gull." 

And  to  make  it  at  all  impressive,  certainly,  a  very 
high  grade  of  subtle  acting  is  required,  not  in  one  or 
two  parts,  but  in  all.  Tchekhov  never  hitched  his 
wagon  to  a  star!  It  would  be  futile  to  analyze  the 
performance  given  at  the  Bandbox.  The  play  was 
too  far  beyond  the  powers  of  every  one  concerned. 
It  is  only  necessary  to  point  out  that  the  abrupt 
transition,  the  shift  from  a  strong  emotion  to  an  irrel- 
evancy, is  possibly  the  most  difficult  technical  feat 
in  the  actor's  art. 

However,  this  failure  of  the  Washington  Square 
Players  had  no  criminal  element  of  low  aim.  At 
the  worst,  it  merely  proved  that  it  takes  longer  to 
develop  a  company  of  competent  actors  out  of  a 
group  of  amateurs  than  we  impatient  Americans  like 
to  fancy.  At  best,  it  showed  that  the  Players  are 
ambitious,  and  wish  to  use  their  successes  as  stepping 


410  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

stones,  dreading  the  commonplace  more  than  failure, 
the  easily  popular  more  than  the  difficult  and  the 
exotic.  The  important  thing  is,  not  that  they  have 
failed  at  their  first  attempt  at  a  four-act  play,  but 
that  they  have  succeeded  by  many  happy  productions 
of  one-act  plays  in  persuading  the  public  to  come  to 
see  them  in  the  longer  work — in  short,  that  they  are 
now  an  accepted  theatrical  institution  in  New  York, 
and  are  going  on  to  wider  effort.  Beginning  a  year 
and  a  half  ago  as  theatrical  amateurs,  this  group  of 
young  enthusiasts  have  by  talent  and  intelligence  and 
cooperative  enthusiasm  stormed  the  forces  of  en- 
trenched professionalism,  and  given  to  New  York  its 
livest  theatre.  In  a  little  over  a  year  they  have 
produced  thirty  short  plays  and  pantomimes,  nine- 
teen of  them  original  native  works,  as  well  as  two 
long  plays;  they  have  discovered  in  Philip  Moeller 
and  Lewis  Beach,  especially,  writers  of  talent;  they 
have  given  to  young  scenic  artists  opportunities  for 
free  experiment  in  stage  pictures;  and  finally,  they 
have  demonstrated  that  persistent  and  intelligent 
practice  of  acting,  even  by  amateurs,  can  develop  a 
company  of  players  the  public  will  pay  to  see,  though 
eighteen  months  will  not  make  them  finished  actors. 
In  short,  they  have  at  least  begun  to  prove  that  what 


WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PLAYERS      411 

the  Abbey  Theatre  players  did  in  Dublin  is  not  im- 
possible in  New  York. 

And  if  it  not  impossible  in  New  York  it  is  not  im- 
possible elsewhere  in  America.  Curiously  enough, 
the  other  spot  on  the  map  of  the  United  States  where 
the  amateur  spirit  seems  at  present  to  be  accomplish- 
ing the  most  in  the  theatre  is  North  Dakota.  Under 
the  leadership  of  Frederick  Henry  Koch  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  North  Dakota,  pageants  are  being  written 
by  groups  of  people  cooperatively,  and  acted  and 
staged  by  the  community.  Professor  Arvold  of  the 
North  Dakota  Agricultural  College  has  devised  a 
"Little  Country  Theatre"  which  serves  the  small 
communities,  the  people  of  these  communities  them- 
selves being  the  actors.  The  theatrical  life  of  the 
countryside  within  the  sphere  of  influence  of  these 
two  universities  is  in  some  part  spontaneously  fos- 
tered by  the  people  themselves,  not  supplied  to  them 
by  outsiders.  The  amateur  spirit  is  making  a  the- 
atre there,  and  some  day  it  will  no  doubt  make  a 
drama. 

There  have  been  numerous  attempts  in  recent  years 
to  start  so-called  little  theatres  in  various  cities,  such 
as  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Chicago  and  Indianapolis. 
But  in  too  many  cases  they  have  come  to  grief,  and 


412  PLAYS  AND  PLAYERS 

upon  inspection  of  the  wreck  the  shrewd  observer 
has  discovered  that  they  were  not  in  reality  a  spon- 
taneous, democratic  growth,  but  superimposed  from 
above  by  some  person  or  persons  of  wealth.  A  gen- 
uine demand  for  them  did  not  exist,  and  a  genuine 
enthusiasm  for  acting,  writing,  scene  painting,  stag- 
ing, was  not  sufficiently  manifest  in  a  large  enough 
group  of  potential  artists.  Samuel  Eliot,  Jr.,  went 
out  from  the  Bandbox  Theatre  to  be  director  of  the 
Indianapolis  Little  Theatre  last  autumn — and  only 
with  the  utmost  difficulty  could  secure  casts  for  his 
productions;  which  simply  meant  that  Indianapolis 
was  not  yet  ready  for  such  an  experiment.  It  was 
superimposed,  not  spontaneously  engendered  by  the 
enthusiasm  and  ambitions  of  the  potential  artists 
themselves. 

Probably  very  few  cities  or  sections  of  the  country 
are  ready,  as  yet.  Nevertheless,  more  and  more  peo- 
ple everywhere  are  beginning  to  see  a  light.  More 
and  more  people  are  beginning  to  realize  that  the  al- 
lied arts  of  the  theatre  can,  and  ought  to  be,  a  field  for 
wholesome  self-expression,  not  merely  for  exploita- 
tion by  Broadway  shop  keepers.  More  and  more 
people  are  realizing  that  each  community  has  a  right 
to  its  own  theatre,  its  own  dramatic  idiom,  and  that 
the  only  way  the  community  can  ever  achieve  its 


WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PLAYERS      413 

own  theatre  is  to  set  out  to  develop  it  from  the  bot- 
tom, by  its  own  efforts.  More  and  more  people  are 
beginning  to  realize  a  truth  some  of  us  have  been 
reiterating  for  years — that  the  future  development 
of  the  American  theatre  must  come  through  a  renais- 
sance in  the  practical  theatre  itself  of  the  amateur 
spirit,  brought  into  the  theatre  by  amateurs  who, 
with  proper  and  intelligent  leadership,  will  remain 
to  become  self-respecting  professional  artists,  or  else 
by  the  existing  professionals  themselves  breaking 
away  from  the  present  chains  of  exploitation. 

And  because  the  Washington  Square  Players  have 
demonstrated  the  entire  possibility  of  such  a  renais- 
sance, right  in  the  citadel  of  smug,  money-grubbing 
exploitation,  New  York  City,  their  success  is  the 
most  important  thing  just  now  in  the  American 
theatre. 


THE    END 


INDEX 


Abbey  Theater  (Dublin),  148 
Adams,   Maude,   4,    5,    172,    173, 

*7S,  177,  244,  376,  379,  3»8 
Addison,  Joseph,  310 
Ade,  George,  151,  251 
Admirable  Crichton,  The,  305,  306 
^Eschylus,  393 
Age  of  Reason,  The,  406 
Aglavaine  and  Selysette,  407 
Aiglon,  L',  390 
Akins,  Zoe,  406 
Allen,  Grant,  123 
Ames,   Winthrop,    155,   156,   157, 

294,  308,  349 
Anderson,  Percy,  43 
Andreyef,  Leonid,  400 
Androcles  and  the  Lion,  188-194, 

334,  240,  392 
Angel ico,  Fra,  319 
Anglin,  Margaret,  217,  221,  222, 

223,  224,  225,  226,  229,  231,  233, 

»58,  307,  3»7,  330,  390 
Anna  Karenina,  105 
Another  Interior,  399 
Anson,  A.  E.,  74 
Anspacher,    Louis    K.,    1x6,    117, 

118,  120,  121,  122,  353 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  223,  227, 

230 

April,  400 

Archer,  William,  295 
Aristotle,  393 


Arliss,  George,  179,  185,  213,  277, 

290,  383,  384,  39i 
Arms  and  the  Man,  306 
Arnold,  Matthew,  197 
Arnold,  Prof.,  411 
Art  and  the  Actor,  379 
As   a   Man   Thinks,   25-33,   301, 

305,  340 
Ashe,  Oscar,  34 
Astor  Theater,  The,  90,  123 
As  You  Like  It,  223,  225,  227,  232 
Aug,  Edna,  88 
Augier,  Emile,  311 
Austen,  Jane,  141,  142,  144 
Antick,  The,  403 


Bacon,  Francis,  405 

Baker,  George  P.,  no,  308,  404 

Bandbox  Theater,   396,  401,  407, 

409,  412 

Bataille,  Henry,  262 
Barker,  Granville,   188,   189,  191, 

192,  193,  234,  235,  238,  240,  392 
Barrie,  Sir  James,  142,  172,   174, 

*75,  274,  275,  305,  306,  313,  332, 

333,  389,  393 
Barrymore,    Ethel,    12,    165,    197, 

258,  294,  332,  391 
Barrymore,  John,  205 
Barrymore,  Maurice,  277 
Beach,  Lewis,  404,  410 


416 


INDEX 


Bear,  The,  401 

Becky  Sharp,  277,  279,  284 

Beecher,  Janet,  258 

Beethoven,  394 

Belasco,  David,  17,  18,  21,  22,  59, 
61,  62,  64,  165,  166,  170,  171, 
179,  180,  181,  184,  185,  186,  284, 

298,  319,  345.  359,  360 
Belasco  Theater,  17,  59,  165,  179, 

361 

Bennett,  Arnold,  44,  45,  158 
Bennett,  Richard,  259 
Benrimo,  50 

Benson  Company,  217,  402 
Bergson,  Henri,  75 
Bernhardt,  Sarah,  389 
Bernstein,  Henry,  16,  165,  168 
Blind,  Eric,  223 
Blossom,  Henry  W.,  251 
Bolton,  Guy,  405 
Boomerang,   The,   361 
Booth,  Edwin,  213,  219,  272,  273, 

38o,  387,  394 
Booth  Theater,  355 
Boris  Godunov,  318 
Boss,  The,  9 
Boston   Museum  Stock   Company, 

376 

Boston  Opera  House,  308,  317 
Boucicault,  Dion,  97 
Bought  and  Paid  For,  99 
Bracco,  Roberto,  403 
Brieux,  Eugene,  273,  295,  365 
Broadway  Jones,  44-49,  215 
Broun,  Hayward,  196,  197 
Browning,  Robert,  322 
Bunty  Pulls  the  Strings,  296 
Burke,  Billie,  165,  180,  379,  383, 

39i 
Busy  Izzy,  88 


Cahill,  Marie,  346 
Caine,  Hall,  197 
Caldara,  Orme,  112,  114 
Calvert,  Louis,  242,  243 
Campbell,  Mrs.  Patrick,  181,  283 
Candler  Theater,  202,  203 
Captain  Jinks  of  the  Horse  Ma- 
rines, 67 

Carlton,  Tom,  405 
Caruso,  Enrico,  6 
Case  of  Becky,  The,  59,  65 
Castle  Square  Theater,  no 
Cato,  310 

Cellini,  Benvenuto,  213 
Century  Theater,  241 
Chambers,  Robert  W.,  196 
Cherry,  Charles,  254,  259 
Cherry  Garden,  The,  408,  409 
Chicago  Players,  The,  300 
Chicago  Theater  Society,  The,  298 
Children,  406 
Chorus  Lady,  The,  82,  83 
Clapp,  Henry  Austin,  257 
Climbers,  The,  352,  391 
Clod,  The,  404 

Cohan,  George  M.,  45,  46,  47,  49, 
9°,  92,  94,  95,  96,  97,  ico,  117, 
124,  125,  197,  215,  251,  261,  275, 

331,  348,  355 
Cohan  and  Harris,  130 
College  Widow,  The,  151 
Collier,  Constance,  216 
Columbia  Dramatic  Museum,  379 
Comedy  Theater,  407 
Common  Clay,  no,  115 
Concert,  The,  117,  180,  298,  299 
Conroy,  Frank,  402 
Coquelin,   Benoit-Constant,    379 
Corbin,  John,  241,  243,  244 
Cordoba,  Pedro  de,  215,  216 


INDEX 


417 


Corey,  Williams,  and  Riter,  202 
Cossart,  Ernest,  240 
Courtenay,  William,  66,  72,  73 
Cowl,   Jane,    in,   114 
Craig,  Gordon,  190,  230,  307,  315, 

316,  318,  320,  323 
Craig,  John,  no,  226 
Craven,  Frank,  99,  100,  103 
Crews,  Laura  Hope,  180,  183,  184, 

187 . 
Criterion  Theater,  241 

Crosman,    Henrietta,   258 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  222 

Dailey,  Pete,  338 

Daly,  Augustin,  243,  311 

Daly's  Theater,  12 

Darling  of  the  Gods,  The,  284 

Darwin,  124 

Decorating  Clementine,  262 

De  Forest,  Marian,  136 

Deland,  Margaret,  314 

Delsarte,  7 

Deslys,  Gaby,  77,  78,  79,  80 

Devil,  The,  179,  285 

Dickens,    Charles,    144,    310,    311, 

376 

Disraeli,  288 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  287,  288,  289 
Ditrichstein,   Leo,    128,    131,    132, 

179,  180,  181,  185 
Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,  59,  62 
Doll's  House,  A,  304 
Don  Giovanni,  130,  133,  243 
Dorrian,  Cecil,  406 
Drama  League  of  America,  The, 

205,  314,  330 
Drama  Society,  The,  242 
Dressier,  Marie,  350 
Dryden,  John,  310 


Duke   of   York's   Theater    (Lon- 

„    don),  202 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  fils,  311 

Duncan,  Isadora,  7 

Duse,  Eleanora,  279 

Dwyer,  Phil,  192 

Earl  of  Pawtucket,  The,  98 

Earth,  The,  68 

Easiest  Way,  The,  117,  199,  269, 

27jf  275,  3i4i  320,  352 
Eaton,  Walter  Prichard,  355 
Electra,  222 
Eliot,  George,  311 
Eliot,  Samuel,  Jr.,  397,  412 
Elliott,  Maxine,  258 
Ellis,  Melville,  78,  79 
Eltinge  Theater,  104 
Emerson,  R.  W.,  409 
Empire  Theater,  172,  312,  389 
Empire  Theater  Stock  Company, 

221,  222 
Engaged,  175 
Eric,  Fred,  42 
Erlanger,  Abe,  88 
Erstwhile  Susan,  134,  318 
Eugenically  Speaking,  399,  401 
Euripides,  393 
Evangelist,  The,  91 
Everett,  Edward,  257 
Eyes  of  the  Heart,  The,  284 

Fairbanks,  Douglas,  85,  88 
Faith  Healer,  The,  90,  91 
Fanny's  First  Play,  357 
Farrar,   Geraldine,   68 
Faversham,    William,    211,    212, 

214,  215,  217,  221,  308 
Fell,  Marian,  407 
Fenwick,  Irene,   108 


INDEX 


Ferber,  Edna,  355 

Ferguson,  Elsie,  12,  165,  197,  384 

Feuillet,  Octave,  400 

Fielding,  Henry,  310 

Fire  and  Water,  403 

First  Lady  of  the  Land,  The,  12 

Fiske,  Harrison  Grey,  34,  179 

Fiske,  Mrs.  Minnie  Maddern,  67, 
72,  121,  134,  136,  137,  138,  185, 
258,  277,  279,  281,  284,  285,  351, 

354,  363,  385,  386,  387 
Fitch,  Clyde,  67,  68,  351,  352,  353, 

355 

Florence,  W.  J.,  250 
Follies,  The  Ziegfeld,  109 
Forbes,  James,  82,  83,  251 
Forbes-Robertson,     Sir     Johnston, 

90,  216,  217,  218,  219,  380,  388, 

394       . 

Forbidden  Fruit,  400 
Forrest,  Edwin,  272,  273 
Forrest,  Sam,  130 
Fourth  Estate,  The,  13 
France,  Anatole,  75,  188,  193 
Frohman,  Charles,  88 
Fulton  Theater,  50 
Furst,  William,  58 

Gaiety  Theater,  134 

Gaiety     Theater      (Manchester), 

148,  154,  3i3 
Galsworthy,  John,  158,  162,   163, 

164,  196,  202,  203,  204,  205,  206, 

207,  271,  293,  295,  296, 305, 313, 

314,  392,  393 

Garden  of  Allah,  The,  35 
Garden  Theater,  195,  197 
Garrick,  David,  219,  310,  349,  356 
Gaythorne,  Pamela,  157,  158,  159 
George,  Grace,  185,  197,  258,  363 


George  M.  Cohan  Theater,  44 
Gerstenberg,  Alice,  403 
Get-Rich-Quick    Wallingford,    9, 

45,  251 
Ghosts,  306 
Giddens,  George,  146 
Gilbert,  Sir  W.  S.,  175,  327 
Gillette,  William,  100,  379,  383 
Gillmore,  Frank,  259 
Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes,  The, 

"7,  353 

Glass,  Montague,  355 
Glendenning,  Ernest,  109 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  310,  371 
Good  Little  Devil,  A,  319 
Goodman,  Edward,  398,  399,  401 
Gorky,  Maxim,  105,  306 
Gottschalk,  Ferdinand,  185,  391 
Grand-Army  Man  The,  151 
Great  Divide,  The,  222,  330 
Great  Lover,  The,  128,  133 
Greek  Theater,  University  of  Cal- 
ifornia, 222 
Green  Stockings,  222 
Gregory,  Lady  Augusta,  371 

Hackett,  James  K.,  241 

Hamlet,  217,  230,  318,  320,  368 

Hampden,  Walter,  4,  243,  259 

Hardy,  Thomas,  385 

Harvest  Moon,  The,  25,  27,  259 

Hassell,  George,  243 

Hatton,  Frederic  and  Fanny,  128 

Hauptmann,    Gerhart,    195,    199, 

3i3 

Hazelton,  George  C.,  50 
Hedda  Gabler,  105,  118,  284 
Hedman,  Martha,  171 
Heggie,  O.  P.,  193,  392 
Helena's  Husbands,  402 


INDEX 


Hennequin,  Alfred,  249 
Her  Husband's  Wife,  330 
Herne,  Crystal,  32,  259 
Herne,  James  A.,  150,  352 
High  Road,  The,  67,  68,  73 
Hindle  Wakes,  76,  148-154 
Hit-the-Trail  Holliday,  123-127 
Hobson's  Choice,  136 
Homer,  67 

Honeymoon  Express,  The,  75-81 
Honorable  Lover,  The,  403 
Horniman,   Miss   A.   E.    F.,    148, 

IS'.  313 

Houghton,  Stanley,  148 
Hudson  Theater,  The,  82,  225 
Huneker,  James,  351 
Hypocrites,  The,  383,  384 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  285,  292,  304,  306, 
311,  320,  339,  352 

Illington,   Margaret,   12,   15,   16 

Illusion  of  the  First  Time  in  Act- 
ing, The,  379,  383 

Importance  of  Being  Earnest, 
The,  259 

Interior,  399,  401,  403 

Irish  Players,  The,  149,  296,  298, 

4" 

Irving,  Sir  Henry,  228 
Irving,  Isabel,  258 
Irwin,  May,  135 
It  Pays  to  Advertise,  349 
Ives,   Charlotte,    32 

James,  William,  18,  21,  24,  409 

Johnson,  Owen,  127 

Jolson,  AI,  79,  81 

Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  91,  352,  383 

Jones,  Robert  E.,  193 

Joseph  and  His  Brethren,  77 


Julius  Caesar,  221 
Justice,  202-207,  271,  392 

Kane,  Gail,  97 

Keane,  Doris,  66,  71,  72,  381,  383, 

384 

Kenyon,  Charles,  12,  15 
Kidder,  Katheryn,   117 
Kindling,  12-16 
King  Henry  VIII,  241 
Kinkead,  Cleves,  no,  114 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  14,  48,  no,  142 
Kismet,  34-43 
Klaw  and  Erlanger,  34 
Kneisels,  The,  394 
Knickerbocker  Theater,  34 
Knoblauch,  Edward,  34,  35,  36 
Koch,  Frederick  Henry,  411 
Kotzebue,  311 
Kreisler,  Fritz,  138,  393 


Lady  Windemere's  Fan,  330 

Lamb,  Charles,  76 

Land  of  Promise,  The,  330 

Lawford,  Ernest,  391 

Lawrence,  Basil,  399 

Leah  Kleschna,  284,  285 

Legend  of  Leonora,  The,  172-178, 

389 

Leslie,  Marguerite,  171    . 
Liberty  Hall,  312 
Licensed,  399 

Little  Country  Theater,  411 
Little  Mary,   172 
Little  Minister,  The,  389 
Little    Theater,    The,    155,    164, 

294,  308,  349 
Little      Theater      (Indianapolis), 

404,  412 


42O 


INDEX 


Locke,  Edward,  59 
Locke,  William  J.,  286 
Loftus,  Cecilia,  216 
Longacre  Theater,  128 
Lord  Dundreary,  250 
Lopoukowa,  Lydia,  402 
Love  of  One's  Neighbor,  400 
Lyric  Theater,  211 


McCarthy,  Lilian,  192 
McKinnel,  Norman,  149 
McLean,  R.  D.,  215 
McRae,  Bruce,  254,  259 
Macbeth,  348,  367,  368 
MacKaye,  Percy,  403 
Madame  X,  174 
Maeterlinck,    Maurice,    399,   400, 

401,  407 

Magical  City,  The,  406 
Major  Barbara,  393 
Man  From  Home,  The,  250,  292, 

298 

Man  of  the  Hour,  The,  9 
Man  Who  Married  a  Dumb  Wife, 

The,  188,  193 
Mansfield,  Richard,  62,  132,  184, 

222,  234,  287 

Mantell,  Robert,  217 

Marlowe,    Julia,    224,    258,    351, 

376,  390 

Martin,  Helen,  136 
Masefield,  John,  313 
Mason,  John,  25,  26,  31,  32,  108, 

'112,     114 

Master  Pierre  Patelin,  193,  406 

Matthews,  A.  E.,  259 

Matthison,  Edith  Wynne,  4,  5,  6,  7, 

157 
Maugham,  Somerset,  165,  330 


Maxine  Elliott  Theater,  66,   148, 

156 

May,  Olive,  88 
Megrue,  Roi  Cooper,  197,  355 
Melba,  Nellie,  135,  138,  388 
Mendelssohn,  239 
Merchant  of  Venice,  The,  368 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  The, 

'241 
Metropolitan   Opera   House,    129, 

3i8 

Meyer,  Josephine,  404 
Mid-Channel,  273,  306 
Midsummer    Night's    Dream,    A, 

234-240,  374 
Mignon,  68 

Mikado,  The,  175,  371 
Miller,  Henry,  90,  259,  260 
Miracle  Man,  The,  90-97 
Miracle  of  St.  Anthony,  The,  400 
Moeller,  Philip,  400,  402,  410 
Moliere,  310 

Molnar,  Ferenc,  179,  182 
Moloch,  123 
Moody,  William  Vaughn,  90,  330, 

355 

Moon  Down,  400 
Morosco,  Oliver,  n6 
Morton,  Madison,  311 
Mrs.  Bumpstead-Leigh,    136 
Mrs.  Dane's  Defense,  222 
Mrs.  Warren's   Profession,   269 
Muck,  Karl,  393 
Music  Master,  The,  17 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  403 
My  Lady's  Honor,  400 

Nash,  George,  97,  259 
Nazimova,  Alia,  12,  390,  391 
New  Amsterdam  Theater,  241 


INDEX 


421 


New  Theater,  The,   3,  4,   5,   n, 
196,  216,  241,  258,  259,  264,  294, 

298,  299,  373 

Nicholson,  Meredith,  150,  151 
Night  of  Snow,  403 
Night  Refuge  The,  105,  306 
Norman,  Christine,  122 
North,  Wilfrid,  157 
Notorious    Mrs.    Ebbsmith,    The, 

283 

Officer  666,  305 
O'Neill,  James,  222 
Ordynski,  Richard,  241,  242 
Osborne,  Thomas  Mott,  205 
Othello,  211-216,  221,  273 
Our  American  Cousin,  250 
Our  Mrs.  McChesney,  391 
Overtones,  403 

Packard,  Frank  L.,  90 

Paderewski,  Ignace,  393 

Page,  Curtis  Hidden,  193 

Pagliacci,  I.,   6 

Pair  of  Silk  Stockings,  A,  349 

Parker,  Dorothy,  146 

Parker,  Louis   N.,   141,    142,   143, 

145,  287,  288 
Passers-by,   158 
Pater,  Walter,  75,  76 
Patience,  371 
Patrician,  The,  314 
Patterson,  Joseph  Medill,  13 
Payne,  B.  Iden,  202 
Peabody,  Josephine  Preston,  3,  6,  7 
Pemberton,  Murdock,  400 
Penguin  Island,  193 
Perugini,  George,  53 
Peter  Pan,  77,  172,  274,  376,  389, 

393 


Phantom  Rival,  The,  179-187 
Pigeon,   The,    155-164.   203,   204, 

294,  295,  305 
Pinafore,  76 
Pinero,  Sir  Arthur,  83,  273,  274, 

275,  298,  306 
Piper,  The,  3-11 
Platt,  George  Foster,  74,  157 
Platt,  Livingston,    223,    226,    227, 

230,  232,  233,  317,  318,  406 
Playmaking,  295 
Polini,  Emilie,  154 
Pomander  Walk,  141-147 
Popularity,  45 
Porter,  Gene  Stratton,  196 
Potash  and  Perlmutter,  117 
Power,  Tyrone,  277 
Prince,  Dr.  Morton,  59 
Princesse  Lointaine,  La,  337 
Pygmalion,  181 

Quality  Street,  141,  142,  145 
Quo  Vadis,  337 

Racine,  310 

Rainbow,  The,  330 

Raymond,  John  T.,  250 

Red  Cloak,  The,  405 

Reed,  John,  400 

Reflections  on  Acting,  379 

Rehan,  Ada,  223,  224 

Reicher,  Emanuel,  195 

Reicher,  Frank,  157,  159,  160,  171 

Reinhardt,  Max,  193,  235,  241,  307, 

316,  318,  320 
Relph,  George,  56 
Reminiscences     of     a     Dramatic 

Critic,  257 

Republic  Theater,  no 
Return  from  Jerusalem,  The,  170 


4.22 


INDEX 


Return  of  Peter  Grimm,  The,  17- 

24,  59,  64 

Revelle,  Hamilton,  42 
Riders  to  the  Sea,  296,  297,  298 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham,  The,  311 
Road-House  in  Arden,  The,  405 
Robertson,  Tom,  311 
Rolfe,  W.  J.,  367 
Romance,  66-74,  117,  381,  383,  385 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  76,  211,  221 
Roosevelt,  Theodore,  382 
Rosmersholm,  284,  320 
Rostand,  Edmond,  4,  337 
Russian  Ballet,  402 
Rutherford  and  Son,  149 

Salvation  Nell,  67 

Sampson,  William,  88 

Sardou,  Victorien,  200,  312,  313 

Savage,  Henry  W.,  75,  80 

Saviors,  400 

Scandal,  The,  262 

Schnitzler,  Arthur,  403 

School  for  Scandal,  The,  249,  306 

Schumann,  Robert,  394 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  310,  311 

Scribe,  Eugene,  200 

Seagull,  The,  407,  408,  409 

Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,  The,  283, 

35i 

Secret,  The,  165-171 

Selwyn,  Edgar,  251 

Sembrich,  Marcella,  393,  394 

Septimus,  286 

Serrano,  Vincent,  32 

Servant  in  the  House,  The,  5 

Seven  Days,  305 

Shakespeare,  56,  67,  91,  124,  206, 
214,  217,  218,  219,  221,  227,  233, 
234,  235,  237,  241,  242,  244,  245, 


272,  275,  304,  307,  310,  318,  365, 
366,  367,  369,  370,  371,  372,  373, 

375,  377,  389,  394,  405 
Shaw,  Arthur,  53 
Shaw,  Bernard,  188,  189,  192,  225, 

273,  306,  313,  338,  365,  371,  393 
Shaw,  Mary,  53,  306 

She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  76,  310 
Sheldon,  Edward,  66,  67,  68,  72, 

73,  104,  105,  107,  108,  109 
Shenandoah,  222 
Shepherd   in   the   Distance,   The, 

400,  401 

Sheridan,  R.  B.,  249,  371 
Shore  Acres,  150,  352 
Show  Shop,  The,  82-89 
Sidney,  George,  88 
Silver  Box,  The,  203,  204,  294 
Sitgreaves,  Beverly,  133 
Skinner,  Otis,  4,  35,  42,  259 
Slice  of  Life,  A,  332 
Smith,  H.  Reeves,  122 
Song  of  Songs,  The,  104-109 
Sophocles,  222,  309 
Sothern,  E.  A.,  250 
Sothern,  E.  H.,  228,  259,  355,  356 
Sparks,  Ned,  88 
Starr,  Frances,  62,  165,  170 
Stevens,  Edwin,  179 
Stevens,  Emily,  121,  122,  354 
Stokes,  Rose  Pastor,  400 
Stone,  Fred,  7 
Strange  Woman,  The,  165 
Strife,  158,  196,  197,  203,  204,  294, 

295,  3H 

Such  a  Little  Queen,  259 
Sudermann,    Hermann,    104,    105, 

106,   313 

Sumurun,  307,  318 
Sutro,  Alfred,  355 


INDEX 


423 


Swartr,  Jean,  79 

Synge,  J.  M.,  149,  296,  313 

Talma,  379,  380 

Taming  of  the  Shrew,  The,  223, 

225,  227,  390 
Taylor,  Laurette,  108 
Taylor,  Tom,  240 
Tchekov,  Anton,  401,  407,  408,  409 
Tempest,  The,  241-245 
Tenor,  The,  405 

Teas  of  the  d'Urbervilles,  385,  386 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  275,  285,  310, 

3" 

Thais,  193 

Thief,  The,  15,  168 

Thirty-Ninth  Street  Theater,  25, 

26,  98,  116 
Thomas,  Augustus,  25,  26,  27,  28, 

30,  3*1  3«,  33,  72,  98,  300,  301, 

305,  340 

Thomas,  A.  E.,  330 
Three  Daughters  of  M.  Dupont, 

The,  272 
Thunderbolt,  The,  274,  298,  299, 

300 

Too  Many  Cooks,  98-103 
Toy  Theater  (Boston),  226 
Traveling  Salesman,  The,  82 
Tree,  Sir  Herbert,  228,  241,  242 
Trelawney  of  the  "Wells,"  83,  274 
Trial  by  Jury,  175 
Truth,  The,  117,  353,  391 
Twain,  Mark,  250 
Twelfth  Night,  223,  224,  227,  229, 

3*7 

Twelve-Pound  Look,  The,  274 
Twice-Born  Men,  95 
Two  Blind  Beggars  and  One  Less 

Blind,  400 


Two  Virtues,  The,  355 
Typhoon,  The,  301,  302 

Unchastened  Woman,  The,   116- 

122,  353 

Under  the  Gas  Lamps,  311 
Urban,  Josef,  241,  317,  406 

Valentine,  Sidney,  157-159 
Virginius,  273 

Walkley,  A.  B.,  141 
Wallack,  Lester,  255,  256 
Wallack's  Theater,  141,  146,  188, 

189,  234 

Walter,  Eugene,  199,  275,  314,  355 
Warfield,  David,  17,  18,  23,  151 
Warren,  William,  257,  258 
Washington  Square  Players,  396- 

4»3 

'Way  Down  East,  150 
Wayburn,  Ned,  78 
Weavers,  The,  195-201 
Weber  and  Fields,  239,  338 
Wedekind,  Frank,  405 
Wendell,  Barrett,  326 
Wendell,  Jacob,  4 
What  Every  Woman  Knows,  389 
Where  Ignorance  is  Bliss,  179 
Whims,  403 
White,  Hervey,  403 
Whitside,  Walker,  301 
Whytal,  Russ,  157,  158 
Wilde,  Oscar,  330 
Wilkinson,  Norman,  235 
Williams,  John  IX,  202 
Williams,  Malcolm,  186,  187 
Winter  Garden,  The,  75,  77,  355 
Winter,   William,    352,   353,    358, 

390 


424 


INDEX 


Winter's  Tale,  A,  273,  373 

Wise,  Thomas,  A.,  109 

Witching  Hour,  The,  25,  26,  73, 

301 

Wizard  of  Oz,  The,  255 
Woods,  A.  H.,  no,  114,  355 
Worthing,   Frank,    180,   185,  254, 

259,  3<>2,  363 


Wright,  Haidee,  355 
Wyndham,  Olive,  258 
Wyndham,  Sir  Charles,  254 

Yapp,  Cecil,  243 
Yeats,  W.  B.,  149 
Yellow  Jacket,  The,  50-58 
You  Never  Can  Tell,  371 


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DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


Short  Plays 

By  MARY  MAC  MILLAN 
To  fill  a  long-felt  want.    All  have  been  successfully 

presented.    Suitable   for    Women's    Clubs,    Girls'   Schools, 

etc.     While   elaborate   enough   for   big  presentation,  they 

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women's  faults  and  foibles.  'The  Futurists,'  a  skit 
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ing. 'Entr'  Act'  is  a  charming  trifle  that  brings  two 
quarreling  lovers  together  through  a  ridiculous  pri- 
vate theatrical.  'The  Ring'  carries  us  gracefully  back 
to  the  days  of  Shakespeare;  and  'The  Shadowed  Star,' 
the  best  of  the  collection,  is  a  Christmas  Eve  tragedy. 
The  Star  is  shadowed  by  our  thoughtless  inhumanity 
to  those  who  serve  us  and  our  forgetfulness  of  the 
needy.  The  Old  Woman,  gone  daft,  who  babbles  in 
a  kind  of  mongrel  Kiltartan,  of  the  Shepherds,  the 
Blessed  Babe,  of  the  Fairies,  rowan  berries,  roses  and 
dancing,  while  her  daughter  dies  on  Christmas  Eve,  is 
a  splendid  characterization." 

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solitude  and  prison  fare  evidently  knew  that  'needs 
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humor,  gay  or  rich,  if  we  find  brilliant  wit;  if  we 
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moves  like  an  arrow;  if  we  find  delicate  and  keen 
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The  Gift 

A  POETIC  DRAMA 
By  MARGARET  DOUGLAS  ROGERS 

A   dramatic  poem   In  two  acts,  treating  in   altogether 
new   fashion  the  world   old  story   of  Pandora,   the   first 
woman. 
New  Haven  Times  Leader: 

"Well  written  and   attractive." 
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"A   very   beautifully   written   portrayal   of   the   old 
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Cincinnati  Enquirer: 

"The   love  story  is  delightfully  told   and  the  dra- 
matic action  of  the  play  is  swift  and  strong." 
Buffalo  Express: 

"It  is  a  delightful  bit  of  fancy  with  a  dramatic  and 
poetic  setting." 
Boston  Woman's  Journal: 

"Epimetheus  and  Pandora  and  her  box  are  charm- 
ingly presented." 
Worcester  Gazette: 

"It  is  absolutely  refreshing  to  find  a  writer  willing 
to  risk  a  venture  harking  back  to  the  times  of  the 
Muses  and  the  other  worthies  of  mythological  fame. 
*  *  *  The  story  of  Pandora's  box  told  in  verse  by  a 
woman.  It  may  be  said  it  could  not  have  been  better 
written  had  a  representative  of  the  one  who  only  as- 
sisted at  the  opening  been  responsible  for  the  play." 
Handsomely  bound  silk  cloth Net,  $1.00 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


Lucky  Pehr 

By  AUGUST  STRINDBERG 

Authorized   Translation   by   Velma  Siuanston  Howard. 

An  allegorical  drama  in  five  acts.     Compared  favorably 

to    Barrie's    "Peter   Pan"    and   Maeterlinck's    "The   Blue 

Bird." 

Rochester  Post  Express: 

Strindberg  has  written  many  plays  which  might  be 
described  as  realistic  nightmares.  But  this  remark  does 
not  apply  to  "Lucky  Pehr."  *  *  *  This  drama  is  one 
of  the  most  favorable  specimens  of  Strindberg's 
genius. 

New  York  World: 

"Pehr"  is  lucky  because,  having  tested  all  things, 
he  finds  that  only  love  and  duty  are  true. 

New  York  Times: 

"Lucky  Pehr"  clothes  cynicism  in  real  entertain- 
ment instead  of  in  gloom.  And  it  has  its  surprises. 
Can  this  be  August  Strindberg,  who  ends  his  drama 
so  sweetly  on  the  note  of  the  woman-soul,  leading  up- 
ward and  on? 

Worcester  Gazette: 

From  a  city  of  Ohio  comes  this  product  of  Swedish 
fancy  in  most  attractive  attire,  attesting  that  the  pos- 
sibilities of  dramatic  art  have  not  entirely  ceased  in 
this  age  of  vaudeville  and  moving  pictures.  A  great 
sermon  in  altruism  is  preached  in  these  pages,  which 
we  would  that  millions  might  see  and  hear.  To  those 
who  think  or  would  like  to  think,  "Lucky  Pehr"  will 
prove  a  most  readable  book.  *  *  *  An  allegory,  it  is 
true,  but  so  are  ^Esop's  Fables,  the  Parables  of  the 
Scriptures  and  many  others  of  the  most  effective  les- 
sons ever  given. 

Boston  Globe: 

A  popular  drama.  *  *  *  There  is  no  doubt  about 
the  book  being  a  delightful  companion  in  the  library. 
In  charm  of  fancy  and  grace  of  imagery  the  story  may 
not  be  unfairly  classed  with  "The  Blue  Bird"  and 
"Peter  Pan." 
Photogravure  frontispiece  of  Strindberg  etched  by 

Zorn.    Also,  a  reproduction  of  Velma  Swanston  Howard's 

authorization. 

Handsomely  bound.     Gilt  top Net,  $1.50 


STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 


Easter 


(A  PLAY  IN  THREE  ACTS) 
AND  STORIES  BY  AUGUST  STRINDBERG 

Authorized  translation  by  Velma  Swanston  Howard. 
In  this  cwork  the  author  reveals  a  broad  tolerance,  a  rare 
poetic  tenderness  augmented  by  an  almost  divine  under- 
standing of  human  frailties  as  marking  certain  natural 
stages  in  evolution  of  the  soul. 
Louisville  Courier- Journal: 

Here  is  a  major  key  of  cheerfulness  and  idealism 
— a  relief  to  a  reader  who  has  passed  through  some 
of  the  author's  morbid  pages.  *  *  *  Some  critics  find 
in  this  play  (Easter)  less  of  the  thrust  of  a  distinctive 
art  than  is  found  in  the  author's  more  lugubrious 
dramas.  There  is  indeed  less  sting  in  it.  Neverthe- 
less it  has  a  nobler  tone.  It  more  ably  fulfills  the 
purpose  of  good  drama — the  chastening  of  the  spec- 
tators' hearts  through  their  participation  in  the  suf- 
fering of  the  dramatic  personages.  There  is  in  the 
play  a  mystical  exaltation,  a  belief  and  trust  in  good 
and  its  power  to  embrace  all  in  its  beneficence,  to  bring 
all  confusion  to  harmony. 
The  Nation: 

Those  who  like  the  variety  of  symbolism  which 
Maeterlinck  has  often  employed — most  notably  in  the 
"Bluebird" — will  turn  with  pleasure  to  the  short  stories 
of  Strindberg  which  Mrs.  Howard  has  included  in  her 
volume.  *  *  *  They  are  one  and  all  diverting  on  ac- 
count of  the  author's  facility  in  dealing  with  fanciful 
details. 
Bookseller: 

"Easter"  is  a  play  of  six  characters  illustrative  of 
human  frailties  and  the  effect  of  the  divine  power 
of  tolerance  and  chanty.  »  *  •  There  is  a  symbolism, 
a  poetic  quality,  a  spiritual  insight  in  the  author's 
work  that  make  a  direct  appeal  to  the  cultured.  *  *  * 
The  Dial: 

One  play   from  his    (Strindberg's)    third,   or   sym- 
bolistic period  stands  almost  alone.    This  is  "Easter." 
There    is    a    sweet,    sane,    life-giving    spirit    about    it. 
Photogravure    frontispiece    of    Strindberg    etched    by 
Zorn.    Also,  a  reproduction  of  Velma  S<wanston  Howard's 
authorization. 
Handsomely  bound.     Gilt  top Net,  $1.50 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


On   the   Seaboard 

By  AUGUST  STRINDBERG 

The    Author's   greatest    psychological    novel.    Author- 
ized Translation  by  Elizabeth  Clarke  Westergren. 

American-Scandinavian  Review: 

"The  description  of  Swedish  life  and  Swedish  scen- 
ery makes  one  positively  homesick  for  the  Skargard 
and  its  moods. 

Worcester  Evening  Gazette: 

"Classes  in  Psychology  in  colleges,  and  Medical  stu- 
dents considering  Pathology  would  derive  much  infor- 
mation from  the  observations  and  reflections  of  the 
commissioner  who  holds  the  front  of  the  stage  whereon 
are  presented  sciences  as  new  to  the  readers  of  to-day 
as  were  those  which  Frederick  Bremer  unfolded  to  the 
fathers  and  mothers  of  critics  and  observers  in  this 
first  quarter  of  the  Twentieth  Century." 

Detroit  Tribune: 

"Hans  Land  pronounced  this  novel  to  be  the  only 
work  of  art  in  the  domain  of  Nietzschean  morals  yet 
written  which  is  destined  to  endure." 

Cincinnati  Times-Star: 

"It  requires  a  book  such  as  'ON  THE  SEABOARD'  to 
show  just  how  profound  an  intellect  was  housed  in  the 
frame  of  this  great  Swedish  writer." 

New  Haven  Leader: 

"His  delineations  are  photographical  exactness  with- 
out retouching,  and  bear  always  a  strong  reflection  of 
his  personality." 

Indianapolis  News: 

"The  story  is  wonderfully  built  and  conceived  and 
holds  the  interest  tight." 

American  Review  of  Reviews: 

"This  version  is  characterized  by  the  fortunate  use 
of  idiom,  a  delicacy  in  the  choice  of  words,  and  great 
beauty  in  the  rendering  of  descriptive  passages,  the 
translation  itself  often  attaining  the  melody  of  poetry 
*  *  *  You  may  read  and  re-read  it,  and  every  read- 
ing will  fascinate  the  mind  from  a  fresh  angle." 

South  Atlantic  Quarterly: 

"Only  a  most  unusual  man,  a  genius,  could  have 
written  this  book,  and  it  is  distinctly  worth  reading." 

Handsomely    bound,   uniform    vuith    Lucky   Pehr    and 
Easter  Net,  $1.25 


STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 


The  Hamlet  Problem  and  Its  Solution 

By  EMERSON  VENABLE 

The  tragedy  of  Hamlet  has  never  been  adequately  in- 
terpreted. Two  hundred  years  of  critical  discussion  has 
not  sufficed  to  reconcile  conflicting  impressions  regarding 
the  scope  of  Shakespeare's  design  in  this,  the  first  of  his 
great  philosophic  tragedies.  We  believe  that  all  those 
students  ivho  are  interested  in  the  study  of  Shakespeare 
•will  find  this  volume  of  great  value. 
The  Louisville  Courier-Journal: 

"Mr.  Venable's  Hamlet  is  a  'protagonist  of  a  drama 
of  triumphant  moral  achievement.'  He  rises  through 
the  play  from  an  elected  agent  of  vengeance  to  a 
man  gravely  impressed  with  'an  imperative  sense  of 
moral  obligation,  tragic  in  its  depth,  felt  toward  the 
world.' " 
E.  H.  Sothern: 

"Your  ideas  of  Hamlet  so  entirely  agree  with  my 
own  that  the  book  has  been  a  real  delight  to  me.  I 
have  always  had  exactly  this  feeling  about  the  char- 
acter of  Hamlet.  I  think  you  have  wiped  away  a 
great  many  cobwebs,  and  I  believe  your  book  will 
prove  to  be  most  convincing  to  many  people  who  may 
yet  be  a  trifle  in  the  dark." 
The  Book  News  Monthly: 

"Mr.  Venable  is  the  latest  critic  to  apply  himself 
to  the  'Hamlet'  problem,  and  he  offers  a  solution  in 
an  admirably  written  little  book  which  is  sure  to  at- 
tract readers.  Undeterred  by  the  formidable  names 
of  Goethe  and  Coleridge,  Mr.  Venable  pronounces  un- 
tenable the  theories  which  those  great  authors  pro- 
pounded to  account  for  the  extraordinary  figure  of 
the  Prince  of  Denmark.  *  *  *  Mr.  Venable  looks  in 
another  direction  for  the  solution  of  the  problem. 
*  *  *  The  solution  offered  by  the  author  is  just  the 
reverse  of  that  proposed  by  Goethe.  *  *  *  From  Mr. 
Venable's  viewpoint  the  key  to  'Hamlet'  is  found  in 
the  famous  soliloquies,  and  his  book  is  based  upon 
a  close  study  of  those  utterances  which  bring  us  with- 
in the  portals  of  the  soul  of  the  real  Hamlet.  The 
reader  with  an  open  mind  will  find  in  Mr.  Venable  a 
writer  whose  breadth  of  view  and  searching  thought 
gives  weight  to  this  competent  study  of  the  most  inter- 
esting of  Shakespearean  problems." 
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DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


HOW  TO  WRITE 

Moving  Picture  Plays 

By  W.  L.  GORDON 

CONTENTS 

What  is  a  motion  picture?  How  are  moving  pictures 
produced?  What  is  necessary  to  write  photoplays? 
Prices  paid  for  plays.  Kind  of  plays  to  write.  Kind 
of  plays  to  avoid.  Single  reels,  double  reels,  etc.  Prepa- 
ration of  manuscript.  The  plot  and  how  to  obtain  it. 
Title  of  play.  Synopsis.  Cast  of  characters.  Scenario. 
Leaders  of  Sub-Titles.  Letters,  Clippings,  etc.  What 
constitutes  a  scene.  Continuity  of  scenes.  Stage  settings 
and  properties.  Entrance  and  exit  of  characters.  Cli- 
max.' Limitations  of  camera.  Length  of  play.  Review. 
Time  required  to  write  a  play.  How  and  where  to  sell 
plays.  A  complete  sample  play  illustrating  every  point 
treated  upon  in  the  instructions.  A  full  list  of  over 
twenty  prominent  film-producing  companies  wanting  and 
buying  plays. 

The  following  extracts  from  letters  of  satisfied  writers, 
addressed  to  the  author,  are  very  convincing  and  be- 
speak the  value  of  this  exhaustive  treatise: 

"  Have  been  successful  in  placing  three  plays,  and  am 
awaiting  news  of  two  additional  ones.  Am  certain  I 
would  never  have  had  that  much  success  if  I  had  not  fol- 
lowed your  instructions." 


"  Your  instructions  entirely  satisfactory.  I  think  that 
any  one  with  common  sense  can  make  a  very  nice  income 
through  moving  picture  play-writing.  My  first  scenario 
has  been  accepted,  and  I  desire  to  thank  you." 


"  You  might  be  interested  to  know  that  my  first  scenario 
completed  according  to  your  instructions  was  accepted  by 
the  Essanay  Film  Co." 


"  Instructions    well    worth    the    money.     Sold    my    first 
scenario  to  the  Edison  Co." 


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DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


The  Truth 

About  The  Theater 

Anonymous 

Precisely  what  the  title  indicates  —  facts  as  they 
are,  plain  and  unmistakable  -without  veneer  of  any 
sort.  It  goes  directly  to  the  heart  of  the  whole 
matter.  Behind  the  writer  of  it  —  who  is  one  of 
the  best  known  theatrical  men  in  New  York  —  are 
long  years  of  experience.  He  recites  what  he 
knows,  what  he  has  seen,  and  his  quiet,  calm,  au- 
thoritative account  of  conditions  as  they  are  is  with- 
out adornment,  excuse  or  exaggeration.  It  is  in- 
tended to  be  helpful  to  those  who  want  the  facts, 
and  for  them  it  will  prove  of  immeasurable  value. 

"  The  Truth  About  the  Theater,"  in  brief,  lifts 
the  curtain  on  the  American  stage.  It  leaves  no 
phase  of  the  subject  untouched.  To  those  who  are 
ambitious  to  serve  the  theater,  either  as  players  or 
as  playwrights,  or,  again,  in  some  managerial  ca- 
pacity, the  book  is  invaluable.  To  those,  too,  who 
would  know  more  about  the  theater  that  they  may 
come  to  some  fair  estimate  of  the  worth  of  the  in- 
numerable theories  nowadays  advanced,  the  book 
will  again  prove  its  value. 

Net  $1.00 


"NDKkWOOI)    .*     I'NDEKWOOI),     New  York 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


